E180: Kast Founder: The Biggest Crypto Opportunity Of Our Lifetime Is Happening Right Now

Kast founder Rags left Circle because he believed building a fintech or bank on top of crypto rails was the greatest opportunity of his lifetime, arguing that USDC and USDT upside is capped by the Fed rate while hundreds of millions of people could benefit from a fiat-compatible product sitting on top of crypto infrastructure. He describes Kast as a global stablecoin neobank, positioning it as fintech rather than crypto, and defines the core thesis as connecting digital assets with everyday finance across approximately 200 countries. Two-thirds to three-quarters of the world cannot move money easily, and stablecoins enable fast global transfers that address this gap in a way traditional banking has not.

Kast launched roughly two and a half years ago with around 400,000 to 500,000 dollars in initial funding and operated on approximately 10 million dollars for most of its first two years despite raising 80 million dollars at a reported 600 million dollar valuation. The company is on track for 100 million dollars in annualized revenue, which Rags says is roughly twice as fast as Revolut and comparable to Nubank and Wise. Kast grew 3x in business during the same period Bitcoin fell approximately 50 percent from around 120,000 dollars, with altcoins down roughly 80 percent and Solana down approximately 65 percent from highs. Rags has personally invested more than five million dollars to buy out early departing team members and has never sold a single share.

More than half of Kast's one million customers are not native crypto users but people who need to move money internationally, which validates the non-crypto fintech positioning. Cards were not in the original vision but became the early primary revenue driver, though Rags is clear that cards alone are not a profitable business. Kast anticipates more than 50 percent of revenue next year will come from products other than cards, with 20 to 30 percent expected from money movement infrastructure enabling instant payments across 50 to 100 countries through 20 to 30 payment providers. The broader strategy is to acquire users with a card and expand into savings, instant global transfers, business accounts, credit, trading, and wealth products. Kast also has 3,000 companies on the waitlist for its business product, which has entered beta, and is launching a lighter social money app called Castro targeting African and Latin American markets.

Kast is allowing itself to run at a small loss for six to nine months to invest harder in growth, with headcount having tripled or quadrupled during this phase. Revenue is forecast to grow three to four times while headcount grows only about 25 percent, with AI and efficiency gains enabling that ratio. The company is acquiring licensed entities to own infrastructure it previously relied on partners for and expects to return to break even within 2026. Rags predicts Kast will raise approximately one billion dollars over the next two to five years, with subsequent investors expected to be growth funds focused on fintech rather than crypto VCs, which he says largely lack the capital to write checks at the required scale.

Rags decided against a token launch, meaning accumulated future-token dollar value will not be liquid and will instead become tokenized equity converted at the valuation from the previous fundraising round, targeted for Q4. He argues most competitor tokens are down 90 to 95 percent and that founders typically retain equity upside while cashing out tokens through OTC deals with no accountability. He acknowledges some early users who funded growth through spending feel cheated by the removal of expected liquidity and says that criticism is fair. Tokenized equity will not be listed on a secondary market to avoid complicating fundraising, with private market buybacks expected every six to twelve months similar to how Stripe and Revolut operate.

On custody, money in the Earn product is already held in a non-custodial wallet via a partnership with Privy, and Kast plans to extend the self-custodial option to all customers imminently, though full self-custody requires product compromises including spending limits and token-specific withdrawals because card providers face settlement risk. Rags estimates roughly 10 percent of users want self-custodial control while the majority prefer the simpler custodial model. One of the Big Four accounting firms conducted a three-month due diligence covering transaction data, financials, technology, legal, and compliance during the Series A.

Rags says the bear market peak was in October 2025 and they are now nine to ten months into a bear market, with Bitcoin having fallen approximately 50 percent from around 120,000 dollars. He believes current levels are roughly the low, that Bitcoin could still fall toward 50,000 dollars if conditions worsen, and that Bitcoin will likely return to 100,000 dollars or close to it by mid-2027. He predicts the majority of crypto neobanks will shut down within 12 months because they cannot make the economics work, and attributes the difference between outcomes like Revolut, which returned roughly 500 times on a 2016 investment, and Monzo, which returned almost nothing, entirely to product velocity.