Octobers’s 1st Week In Crypto: Wells Fargo, Gate And Yuno Announce New Partnerships
This week’s deals are about convenience catching up with crypto: Wells Fargo shopping for liquidity, Gate and Visa putting crypto in a card, Yuno and Nium smoothing checkout and cash-out, and Bron letting a face replace a seed phrase. Messi’s farewell, meanwhile, gets a crypto sponsor’s spin as well.
Wells Fargo Reportedly Explores a Crypto Liquidity Deal With Kraken Parent Payward
Wells Fargo is said to be in talks with Payward, the company behind Kraken, about plugging into its liquidity for crypto trading.
The reporting leans on anonymous sources, both companies declined to comment, and nothing is final, so treat it as a possibility rather than a done deal. The appeal for the bank is simple enough: access to crypto markets and order execution without building the machinery itself.
That’s the kind of service Payward already sells. Beyond running the exchange, its services arm supplies trading, custody and market access to banks and fintechs, and Kraken Prime is pitched squarely at regulated institutions as a liquidity source. SoFi signed up for it in September, and Payward has also been reported in separate talks with BNY.
There’s a small twist in the backstory too. Wells Fargo acted as Nasdaq‘s exclusive capital markets adviser when Nasdaq agreed to invest $100 million in Payward at a $21 billion valuation.
The bank has been building out its crypto footprint elsewhere, from spot Bitcoin ETF access for wealth clients to backing Elliptic and Talos.
A lot of practical questions are still unanswered: who gets access, which assets are tradable, who holds custody, how settlement works outside banking hours.
The talks don’t mean Wells Fargo has launched a trading service, only that a route banks seem to like, keeping the client relationship in-house and renting the market access, is getting more crowded.
Gate Partners With Visa on a Crypto-Linked Card Across 40+ Markets
Gate is teaming up with Visa on a crypto-linked card that’s expected to roll out across more than 40 countries and territories.
The mechanics are the familiar ones: you spend at a shop or online, and the crypto in your Gate account gets converted to fiat at the moment of purchase. Applying for and managing the card happens inside the Gate app, with details on eligible markets and supported assets sitting on the product page.
Visa’s side of the bargain is reach, with acceptance at over 175 million merchant locations in more than 200 countries and territories.
It also says there are now more than 160 stablecoin-linked Visa card programmes live worldwide, with payment volume up nearly 200% year over year, which gives some context for why everyone keeps launching these.
Gate brings a sizeable base of its own: more than 61 million users, 5,300-plus crypto assets and a growing stock and TradFi menu. The card also slots into Gate Money, a newer all-in-one app mixing crypto, fiat, stocks, ETFs, gold and bank accounts.
Gate’s founder and CEO, Dr. Han, said digital assets are “gradually becoming part of everyday financial life,” and that the Visa tie-up should make paying with them feel more natural.
Visa’s Nischint Sanghavi framed it as widening payment choice for consumers who want flexible, widely accepted options.
Yuno Partners With Coinbase to Add One-Click Stablecoin Checkout for Merchants
Payments platform Yuno has integrated Coinbase Payments Acceptance, so merchants already on Yuno can offer stablecoin checkout without any extra development work. It’s live globally, and Yuno becomes Coinbase’s first global commerce orchestration partner, which is a nice bit of positioning for both sides.
The pitch is that merchants flip a switch rather than wire up a new provider. They keep their existing payment setup for processing, and stablecoins show up as one more option, aimed at things like digital goods, gaming, travel and cross-border sales, where card access can be patchy or local currencies are unstable.
The announcement cites $10.2 trillion in stablecoin transaction volume over the past 12 months, up 63% year on year, and says demand runs strongest in markets where cards are harder to come by.
This isn’t Yuno’s first stablecoin move this year. It had already lined up deals with Crypto.com, BVNK and Triple-A, and the idea running through all of them is one connection to many digital currency providers instead of integrating each separately.
Yuno describes itself as an AI-native platform with a single API covering more than 1,000 payment methods across over 190 countries, with merchants such as McDonald’s, GoFundMe and Rappi among its users.
Nium Partners With RedotPay to Widen Its Stablecoin Off-Ramp
Nium will supply off-ramp infrastructure to RedotPay, giving the stablecoin payments fintech a route into Nium’s network across more than 190 countries and 100 currencies. RedotPay says it serves over nine million users, and the practical point is letting more of them turn stablecoin balances into regular money they can actually spend or send.
Off-ramping has quietly become the bottleneck for a lot of crypto payments firms, because holding stablecoins is easy while getting them into a local bank account, wallet or card is where things tend to stall. Nium’s setup handles that last mile through its own licensed payout network, connecting to stablecoin rails via regulated blockchain infrastructure partners.
It moved over $84 billion in the past year and holds licenses in more than 40 countries, which is probably a big part of why RedotPay wanted it.
Nium’s CEO and co-founder, Prajit Nanu, said stablecoins are turning into “a daily payment method, not just a trading asset,” and that RedotPay’s customers shift between digital and traditional money constantly.
RedotPay’s CEO and co-founder, Michael Gao, said the aim is an inclusive platform, and that Nium’s infrastructure will help users put their digital assets to work for “everyday things” in life.
LBank Marks Its Argentina Football Partnership Around Messi’s Farewell Match
When Lionel Messi played his farewell match for Argentina against Benin on October 6, LBank was in the mix as a regional sponsor of the national team through its deal with the Argentine Football Association. Around the game it put out a commemorative video built around Messi and Argentina, plus a 300 USDT giveaway for its community.
The sponsorship itself dates back to September 2025. During the 2026 World Cup cycle LBank stretched it well past logos and banners, with World Cup prediction markets, football-themed user campaigns and a VIP matchday in Dallas around the Austria game.
The company’s argument, per the release, is that sponsorships are becoming interchangeable, so the real edge is what you build around the IP.
It calls this “IP liquidity,” meaning cultural attention gets steered into events, products and rewards. As a non-sports example it points to a 500,000 USDT campaign tied to Pudgy Penguins, noting PENGU rose 62.1% over seven days, though that’s the company’s framing of events.
Eric He, who works on community and risk control at LBank, said a partnership shouldn’t just park a logo beside the moment, it should give people ways to take part through content, community and products.
Bron Teams Up With iProov for Face-Scan Wallet Recovery
Bron has launched FaceScan, a recovery option for self-custodial wallets built on iProov‘s Dynamic Liveness technology, so a user can regain access with a face scan instead of a seed phrase. It’s available globally now and works across operating systems and devices.
The problem it targets is the oldest one in self-custody: lose your device or your seed phrase, and there’s nobody to call. iProov’s liveness check is meant to confirm that the person recovering the wallet is the original owner and a real, live human rather than a deepfake or a photo.
FaceScan sits next to Bron’s existing Guardian system, where two trusted contacts vouch for you, and users can choose one method or stack both.
The timing makes some sense given the scale of the audience. Research from June 2026 estimates roughly 774 million people worldwide own crypto, plenty of whom are managing their keys alone.
Dmitry Tokarev, Bron’s founder, said the industry has spent years acting as if losing everything is an acceptable price for self-custody, and that FaceScan confirms identity without Bron needing to know who you are or ever taking custody.
His line is that people shouldn’t have to pick between “control and recoverability.”
Disclaimer
In line with the Trust Project guidelines, please note that the information provided on this page is not intended to be and should not be interpreted as legal, tax, investment, financial, or any other form of advice. It is important to only invest what you can afford to lose and to seek independent financial advice if you have any doubts. For further information, we suggest referring to the terms and conditions as well as the help and support pages provided by the issuer or advertiser. MetaversePost is committed to accurate, unbiased reporting, but market conditions are subject to change without notice.
About The Author
Alisa, a dedicated journalist at the MPost, specializes in crypto, AI, investments, and the expansive realm of Web3. With a keen eye for emerging trends and technologies, she delivers comprehensive coverage to inform and engage readers in the ever-evolving landscape of digital finance.
More articles
Alisa, a dedicated journalist at the MPost, specializes in crypto, AI, investments, and the expansive realm of Web3. With a keen eye for emerging trends and technologies, she delivers comprehensive coverage to inform and engage readers in the ever-evolving landscape of digital finance.
