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New York, August 11 2026: KAST, the global financial platform built on stablecoin rails, announced today that Connor Fitzgerald has joined the company as U.S. General Manager.
- With Fitzgerald, KAST is further capitalizing on demand for stablecoin-powered finance
- The hire is KAST’s latest move to further growth in the U.S.
- His extensive experience bridges consumer financial products and partnerships across fintech, payments and digital assets
Fitzgerald will lead KAST’s U.S. business. He’ll scale the core platform, launch KAST Business, build the local team and bring KAST’s next consumer and business products to the U.S. market. This is a key hire for KAST, with the company growing to about 250 full-time employees across engineering, product and compliance, to meet fast-growing demand.
KAST has scaled to more than one million users and is processing about $5 billion in annualized transaction volume. In 2025, stablecoin volume hit a record $33 trillion, exceeding Visa and Mastercard combined, according to Bloomberg and Artemis Analytics.
“We’re excited to have Connor as part of our exceptional KAST team to scale in the world’s biggest financial market,” said KAST Founder & CEO Raagulan Pathy. “He brings deep experience from a variety of fintechs and knows how to dig in and drive growth.”
The hire follows KAST’s record $80 million Series A funding round, which is fueling expansion across North America, Latin America and the Middle East, as well as accelerating licensing, compliance, product development and headcount.
“Stablecoins force you to rebuild finance from first principles,” Fitzgerald said. “That's why KAST caught my attention. What stood out was the company’s willingness to invest early in the hard things such as licensing, compliance, real infrastructure, and greater ownership of the underlying rails. The company’s momentum speaks for itself.”
Before joining KAST, Fitzgerald served as Head of Partnerships, Cards at Bridge, now part of Stripe. He helped build Bridge's global stablecoin card program from zero, establishing bank, network, and developer partnerships and expanding the platform to more than 100 markets. He also helped operationalize Bridge's first U.S. stablecoin settlement flow and scale annualized payment volume from zero to tens of millions of dollars.
Earlier, Fitzgerald led business development and product strategy at Coinstar, where he launched the company's first off-kiosk fintech products: a crypto wallet enabling cash-to-crypto conversion and a prepaid card. He started his fintech career at Tilt, a social payments platform acquired by Airbnb in 2017, and later joined the platform Dave as employee No. 15, building its partnerships function and helping scale the company from Series A through its 2022 public listing.
He has spent more than a decade building consumer financial products and partnerships across fintech, payments and digital assets. He lives in San Diego with his wife and puppy.
Founded in July 2024 by former Circle executive Pathy, KAST provides USD-denominated accounts, global pay-ins and payouts to more than 170 countries, and a growing suite of consumer and business financial tools built on stablecoin rails rather than legacy settlement networks.
Media contact
For more information or media enquiries, please contact press@kast.xyz.
About KAST
KAST is a stablecoin-powered financial platform that connects digital assets with traditional finance, enabling 1 million+ users to send, receive and convert funds across borders, currencies and payment rails through a single app. The company focuses on helping individuals and businesses earn globally and spend locally by combining instant peer-to-peer transfers with compliant access to local bank payouts in supported markets. Visit www.kast.xyz
