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Toku and Kota Launch Strategic Integration to Bring Streamlined Benefit Access Into Growing Stablecoin Compensation Platform

By Dominic Sow · 21 September 2025

Toku partners with Kota to integrate employee health and benefits into its stablecoin payroll platform, with CEOs Ken O’Friel and Luke Mackey highlighting a unified solution for global HR teams.
Toku, the global leader in stablecoin payroll, today announced the first employee benefits integration into its stablecoin payroll platform through a partnership with Kota. With this integration, Toku’s platform now delivers Kota-powered health and employee benefits alongside payroll, giving HR teams a seamless, broker-free experience. This partnership comes as the desire among global employees and contractors to be paid in stablecoin continues to mount. In addition to Toku’s payroll and compensation platform, the company’s API is the only worldwide option that allows companies to use their current payroll provider to process instantaneous payments using stablecoin. This partnership advances that utility by giving all Toku users the ability to administer, manage, and disburse health and employee benefits through Kota’s infrastructure and selection of local providers.  The strength and convenience of health and employee benefits offerings are among the most significant factors in attracting and retaining top talent. For HR teams at global companies, however, offering benefits is needlessly complex due to distinct regulatory environments across borders. By embedding Kota’s infrastructure directly into Toku, payroll and benefits are unified in one compliant, scalable system, helping employers deliver locally relevant and efficient benefits alongside fast and reliable stablecoin payroll. With this partnership, Toku users can now:
  • Browse local health plans in each country from popular local providers
  • Enroll employees and dependents in a few clicks - without the typical back-and-forth with a traditional broker
  • Automate payroll deductions and tax reconciliation, fully synced with Toku’s stablecoin payroll
  • Cut broker fees and manual admin, freeing HR teams to focus on their people
Ken O’Friel, Cofounder and CEO of Toku: “We know the growth of stablecoin is changing the relationship between employer and employee. As the only market resource that allows employers to use their existing payroll system to offer stablecoin compensation, we want our platform to be as comprehensive as possible and serve more than just employee payroll needs. This partnership with Kota solves for that by putting their elite employee benefits infrastructure alongside our ability for employees to be paid in stablecoin. As more companies move to offer on-chain payroll because of the speed and transparency it offers, they need benefits that work just as fast. By integrating Kota directly into Toku, we’ve closed that gap and offered companies a single, seamless system to pay and insure their teams.” Luke Mackey, Co-Founder and CEO of Kota: “Just 12 months ago, making health insurance benefits available directly inside stablecoin payroll would have seemed impossible. Kota is now powering that reality with Toku, giving companies and employees access to global benefits in a way that reflects how the modern workforce is and will be paid. It’s another major step toward building benefits infrastructure that keeps pace with the future of work.”

Companies in this story: Kota, Toku

People in this story: Luke Mackey, Ken O’Friel

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