1Konto

1Konto is an institutional fintech company building infrastructure for real-time cross-border payments, settlement, and foreign exchange through stablecoin-powered rails. Its flagship product, 1KPrime, serves institutional clients—banks, corporate treasuries, payment service providers, asset managers, and OTC desks—that need to move large sums across borders faster and cheaper than traditional SWIFT-based processes allow.

The Problem With Legacy Settlement

Cross-border institutional payments have historically run through correspondent banking networks, where a single transaction can take two to five business days to settle, involve multiple intermediary fees, and require pre-funded nostro accounts tied up in foreign currencies. 1Konto targets this friction directly, promising settlement in under one hour and fee reductions of up to 50 percent compared to traditional SWIFT workflows.

1KPrime: The Core Platform

1Konto's 1KPrime platform provides three integrated service layers for institutional clients.

Liquidity and Trading: Clients access deep liquidity across stablecoin and major fiat currency pairs. High-notional OTC trades are executed with tight spreads and zero slippage through direct counterparty relationships and API connectivity. The platform handles USD, EUR, GBP, AUD, CAD, CHF, JPY, MXN, NZD, SEK, and ZAR alongside digital assets including BTC, ETH, USDT, and USDC.

Multi-Currency Settlement: 1KPrime routes payments through local rails, eliminating the correspondent banking chain for many corridors. Transactions settle onchain with full traceability while maintaining regulatory compliance at each step. The platform integrates with existing bank and custodial systems through API-based connectivity, meaning institutions do not need to rebuild their core infrastructure to plug in.

Bitcoin-Backed Credit: Institutional clients can draw stablecoin-based credit lines within hours, using Bitcoin as collateral held in segregated wallets at tier-1 custodians. This gives treasury teams working capital flexibility without liquidating positions, which is particularly useful for firms managing active cross-border payment obligations.

The Stablecoin Sandwich Model

1Konto's settlement architecture follows a "stablecoin sandwich" structure: fiat currency enters the platform at origin, converts to a stablecoin for near-instant cross-border movement across public blockchain rails, then converts back to local fiat at the destination. This approach preserves regulatory compliance at both fiat entry and exit points while capturing the speed and cost advantages of decentralized settlement infrastructure.

The company is a certified Circle Alliance partner, integrating USDC and EURC—Circle's euro-denominated stablecoin—into its settlement infrastructure. Supported blockchain networks include Aptos, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Base, Celo, and additional chains.

Scale and Market Traction

As of 2025, 1Konto has processed over $3.5 billion in total volume across more than 80 institutional counterparties, with revenue growing 7.4 times year-over-year. These metrics reflect institutional adoption rather than retail activity: the clients generating that volume are banks, payment processors, and corporate treasury operations moving material capital.

In 2025, 1Konto won the Fintech Meetup Pitch Competition—selected as the top innovator from hundreds of fintech startups and growth-stage companies—receiving a $50,000 investment from Commerce Ventures. Competition judges included executives from JP Morgan, Mastercard, and Goodwin Law. Dan Rosen of Commerce Ventures noted that 1Konto's presentation "stood out as a real-world solution that institutions are already using at scale."

Target Clients and Use Cases

1KPrime is designed for several institutional segments:

• Corporate treasuries managing multi-currency flows and seeking to reduce working capital locked in cross-border payment cycles
• Payment service providers and FX platforms looking to streamline correspondent banking dependencies and offer clients faster settlement
• Capital markets participants requiring faster collateral movement across jurisdictions
• Asset managers and OTC desks that need deep institutional liquidity with integrated compliance controls
• Development organizations and NGOs handling transparent multi-party disbursements across emerging markets

The common thread is institutions that move significant capital internationally and bear the cost—in fees, time, and tied-up liquidity—of legacy correspondent banking infrastructure.

Currencies and Supported Assets

Following its 1KPrime API and WebApp expansion, 1Konto elevated liquidity to USD levels across a broad currency roster: EUR, GBP, AUD, CAD, CHF, JPY, MXN, NZD, SEK, and ZAR. Digital asset coverage includes BTC, ETH, USDT, USDC, and other leading cryptocurrencies and stablecoins. CEO Edwin Handschuh described the expansion as enabling clients to "venture into new territories like the Euro Zone, Great Britain, and beyond with unparalleled ease."

The 1Konto Market Brief

Alongside its trading platform, 1Konto publishes a weekly market brief on Substack under the byline of CEO Edwin Handschuh. The publication covers digital asset markets, stablecoin regulatory developments, macro trends, and institutional adoption themes. As of mid-2026, the newsletter remains active, addressing Treasury stablecoin rulemaking, AI infrastructure investment flows, and Bitcoin ETF capital movements.

Team and Leadership

Edwin Handschuh cofounded 1Konto and serves as CEO. He maintains an active public voice on institutional stablecoin adoption and cross-border settlement trends through both the Substack publication and industry appearances.

Geographic Reach

1Konto operates across North America, Latin America, Asia-Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East and Africa, supporting institutions in each region with local rail access and multi-currency settlement capabilities.

Current Status

1Konto is actively operating as of mid-2026. The 1KPrime platform is live, the company blog remains current, and 1Konto continues expanding its currency roster and geographic coverage. Its core positioning—institutional-grade settlement infrastructure using stablecoin rails as a bridge between traditional fiat systems—targets a genuine structural inefficiency in global institutional finance, and the reported volume and revenue metrics indicate the model is gaining meaningful traction.