Timeline
- 7.5
Deutsche Börse Takes $200M Kraken Stake in TradFi Push
Deutsche Börse has acquired a $200 million stake in crypto exchange Kraken, according to a CoinMarketCap report. The equity investment is described as part of a broader push by traditional financial infrastructure firms into digital-asset trading. The deal marks a major regulated European exchange operator deepening its exposure to crypto trading infrastructure, a signal of continued consolidation of traditional finance into the digital-asset sector. It also bears on Kraken's institutional positioning and European crypto market access. The stake is valued at $200 million; the report does not specify the percentage of Kraken it represents. Kraken, legally named Payward, Inc. and founded in 2011, reported $207 billion in quarterly trading volume by 2025.
- 7.5
Stripe to expand stablecoin cards to over 100 countries by the end of the year
Stripe plans to expand its stablecoin card programs to more than 100 countries by the end of the year, and Henri Stern — CEO and co-founder of wallet infrastructure firm Privy, which Stripe acquired in 2025 — has taken on an additional role overseeing stablecoins and crypto across Stripe. Stablecoin card spending reached about $1.2 billion last month, triple the level a year earlier, according to Paymentscan. Stablecoin cards are a fast-growing corner of the $300 billion-plus digital dollar market, and the volume figures cited point to stablecoins moving beyond crypto trading and cross-border transfers into everyday purchases. Existing customers of Stripe's stablecoin card programs include crypto exchange Kraken, fintech Ramp and payments app Morse. Stern said the expansion is expected by year-end, and that Stripe intends to remain "completely stablecoin agnostic, completely blockchain agnostic," with many programs currently using Circle's USDC. Stripe says it has issued more than 400 million cards and processed hundreds of billions of dollars in card volume since 2018, and its stablecoin offering combines that issuing business with Bridge, the stablecoin infrastructure company it bought for $1.1 billion in 2024; Stripe is also exploring tokenized deposits and DeFi use cases.