How operators are future-proofing their payment infrastructure

The staggering financial scale of the global online market is firmly on an upward trajectory. The sector was valued at roughly $88bn in 2025 and is on track to more than double by the early 2030s, according to Grand View Research .

However, according to RYKI , a Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP), the industry has outgrown its payment infrastructure.

Digital asset payments are becoming increasingly significant within the space. RYKI cites industry analysts who estimate that crypto-funded wagers now account for close to 17% of all iGaming bets globally, and that more than 30% of online operators already support some form of cryptocurrency payment.

Most of that demand still runs on payment systems built for an earlier era, where cross-border flows depend on correspondent banking and wires that bring multi-day settlement, foreign-exchange spreads and banking cut-off delays.

Pain points

The pain points facing gaming businesses are clear, beginning with slow, costly cross-border settlement. International payments routed through SWIFT and correspondent banks can take three to seven days to clear, with foreign exchange conversion adding 50 to 100 basis points per transaction.

Double conversion is also an issue. Operators without a gaming-friendly settlement partner in the western hemisphere often see crypto off-ramps settle in euros, forcing a second conversion to dollars and a second spread on every transaction.

‘The largest operators are on payment infrastructure that was never designed for how their customers actually behave’

Compliance friction is problematic, with generic banking and payment relationships frequently triggering holds and fund freezes when crypto-linked flows appear, disrupting operations and tying up working capital.

Furthermore, the lack of an on-ramp for crypto-native customers is a common issue. A growing share of high-value players and exhibitors who already hold stablecoins do not have a trusted, compliant way to convert them into gaming credit or pay event fees.

Meanwhile, manual reconciliation across events, currencies and counterparties increases operational overheads and consumes the finance team’s time and resources.

RYKI , registered in the British Virgin Islands, is familiar with these pain points that face many operators. Having executed more than $1bn in trades since its founding in 2020, RYKI has launched a dedicated service line for the global gaming industry.

“Gaming has become a financial business as much as an entertainment one,” RYKI CEO Lennon Sweeting says. “The largest operators move high volumes, hold customer funds and carry foreign-exchange risk at institutional scale, but they are doing it on payment infrastructure that was never designed for how their customers actually behave.”

A dedicated service

RYKI’s offering gives casinos, online gaming operators, iGaming platforms, software providers and conference organisers a single pathway to accept stablecoin and crypto payments, settle into fiat the same day, and manage treasury across multiple currencies and jurisdictions through a global fully registered counterparty.

By packaging same-day cross-border settlement, institutional custody and gaming-aware compliance into a single enterprise service line for casinos, online operators and industry events, RYKI’s gaming service is built around four key capabilities.

The first is stablecoin payment rails and direct fiat settlement, with RYKI replacing fragmented, multi-step payment processes with a single execution pathway. Direct US dollar liquidity removes the euro intermediary and the double-spread cost structure, while stablecoin-connected rails enable same-day settlement in place of SWIFT-dependent timelines.

Secondly, clients’ digital assets are held in audited, compliant custody, removing the need for operators to build in-house crypto handling systems and navigate the regulatory ambiguity that inevitably follows.

RYKI also provides treasury management across currenci