Kraken powering B2B stablecoin payments
Arjun Sethi, co-CEO of Kraken, on building the Nasdaq of crypto
This reveals Kraken is trying to turn exchange liquidity into payments infrastructure, not just trading volume. For a business sending a large supplier payment in stablecoins, the hard part is not moving the token, it is getting in and out of fiat instantly without losing money on spread or waiting on settlement. Kraken’s professional trader base and large order flow help create the tight pricing and immediate execution that make those workflows usable for high value B2B transfers.
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In practice, stablecoin payments need liquidity on both ends. A company may start with local currency, convert into USDC or USDT, send it, then convert back into local fiat for the recipient. If the exchange books are thin, the company eats slippage, delays, or failed execution. That is why exchanges and market makers sit at the center of serious cross border payments flows.
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Kraken’s positioning is different from a retail first app. Its higher revenue per user and concentration in professional trading suggest a customer base that trades larger size more often, which naturally deepens order books. That same depth can then support adjacent products like treasury movement, stablecoin payouts, and app level money movement built on top of the exchange.
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The comparable pattern is visible in emerging market B2B payments. Companies like Kapital and infrastructure providers like Layer 2 and Rain are seeing demand for hybrid flows, where businesses want on ramps, off ramps, third party payouts, and large corporate payments in one stack. Kraken’s exchange can serve as the liquidity engine underneath that stack.
The next step is exchanges becoming utility layers for money movement. As more payroll, treasury, and supplier payments run through stablecoins, the winning platforms will be the ones that combine regulation, bank connectivity, and consistently deep liquidity, because that is what turns crypto rails into something a finance team can rely on every day.