Kraken has been operating since 2011—the oldest of the major active crypto exchanges and, in our assessment, the most stable: the platform has weathered all market cycles, including the Mt. Gox and FTX collapses, and in fifteen years has never lost client funds due to a hack.
The second distinctive feature is a consistent focus on corporate and institutional clients: prime brokerage, banking custody, and OTC are developed here significantly more than retail services. Below—the institutional stack, platform functionality, Wyoming banking custody structure, and legal boundaries.
Disclaimer of interest: we are Kraken investors from the Seed round and know the company from the inside—which makes us all the more careful with facts.
History: security-first as strategy
The exchange launched in September 2013 in San Francisco after two years of closed development. The market was then living under the shadow of Mt. Gox problems, and Powell deliberately built infrastructure where security stands above growth speed. From this DNA grew:
- the industry's first cryptographically verifiable Proof of Reserves—March 2014;
- conservative listing policy;
- the habit of obtaining licenses in advance, before launching a product in a new jurisdiction.
A telling detail: when the trustee of the bankrupt Mt. Gox chose a platform to work with creditor claims, the choice fell on Kraken. Today Proof of Reserves is published quarterly: an independent auditor confirms that client assets are covered by reserves at 1:1 and above.
💡 Proof of Reserves is the hygiene minimum for platform trust: cryptographic proof that declared reserves exist and cover obligations to clients. The report captures the state as of a snapshot date, so regularity gives it meaning—Kraken's cycle is quarterly.
Institutional stack
Under the Kraken Institutional brand, four elements are assembled:
- Kraken Prime—prime brokerage (June 2025): liquidity from 20+ venues, over 90% of digital asset market coverage, smart order routing, T+1 credit, collateralized financing;
- Kraken Custody—qualified custody through Kraken Financial, a bank with Wyoming SPDI charter: assets are segregated and bankruptcy-remote;
- OTC desk and staking—large blocks outside the order book; rewards accrue directly from custody;
- xStocks—tokenized stocks and ETFs (issuer Backed, originally on Solana): around 60 securities in 160+ countries, unavailable to US persons.
What the SPDI charter provides
SPDI (special purpose depository institution) is a banking charter that Wyoming created in 2019 specifically for digital assets; Kraken Financial received it first in the US, in September 2020. The regime is more conservative than ordinary banking:
- fiat deposits are covered by 100% reserves, fractional lending is prohibited;
- for digital assets, the bank acts as a fiduciary under supervision of the Wyoming Division of Banking;
- custody assets stand outside the bankruptcy estate of the trading platform—exchange bankruptcy cannot reach them.
The logic is the same as in classic securities custody—see breakdown of Euroclear, Clearstream, and Pershing.
⚙️ A balance on a trading account is an unsecured claim against the exchange as counterparty. A balance in Kraken Custody is segregated property under Wyoming banking regime. The legal protection of these two positions is different, so allocation between them is an independent decision with its own fees and SLA.
Functionality: what's on the platform
Trading core
Spot across several hundred assets (exact list depends on jurisdiction) against seven fiat currencies: USD, EUR, GBP, CHF, CAD, AUD, JPY. Interfaces—simple Kraken app, Kraken Pro with full order book and advanced orders, Kraken Desktop; for algorithmic clients—REST, WebSocket, and FIX. Spot margin provides leverage up to 5x, OTC desk closes blocks that would move the order book.
Kraken Pro fee schedule
Maker/taker from 0.25%/0.40% on volume up to $10k over 30 days—down to 0.00%/0.08–0.10% at turnover above $10 million. Rate is recalculated on rolling 30-day volume; institutional clients have access to individual terms.
Derivatives
Global clients have access to perpetual and term futures with leverage up to 50x—this business has been developing since 2019, with the acquisition of UK-based Crypto Facilities. In the US, the lineup was assembled in three steps:
- July 2025—CME crypto futures directly in the Kraken interface;
- May 2026—CFTC-regulated spot margin;
- May 29, 2026—announcement of the first CFTC-regulated perpetual futures in the US: launch within a month through Kraken Pro, clearing—Kraken Derivatives US (formerly NinjaTrader Clearing, FCM), venue—Bitnomial Exchange (DCM).
Starting perpetual contract lineup: BTC, ETH, SOL, XRP, ADA, LINK, DOGE, LTC, AVAX; funding rate recalculated every eight hours.
Beyond trading
Around the trading core—several services, each with its own audience:
- On-chain staking—major PoS assets, without withdrawal from custody;
- Krak—payment app (summer 2025): accounts in 300+ crypto and fiat assets, transfers by kraktag nickname to over a hundred countries without IBAN;
- Business accounts—separate onboarding for companies, funds, and trusts;
- Ink—proprietary Layer 2 on OP Stack: by summer 2025 over 500 thousand transactions per day, sequencer remains with Kraken—the same model on which Base earns for Coinbase;
- Kraken Embed—white-label (April 2025): regulated crypto trading inside third-party applications, first partner—neobank bunq; licensing mechanics—in white-label CASP breakdown.
🧭 Practical guide: one-off operations are more convenient through the retail app, active trading—through Pro or API/FIX, and institutional-size mandates—through Kraken Institutional, where custody agreement, OTC desk, and dedicated team appear.
Application: scenarios for private wealth
Typical usage pattern for family offices:
- onboarding under family profile: European structures enter through MiCA entity in EEA, international ones choose jurisdiction with broader product stack;
- large purchases and exits—through OTC desk: quote is fixed before trade, market doesn't move, settlement against custody;
- long positions—in Kraken Custody with minimal trading balance; staking from custody, without hot wallets;
- for funds and managers with multiple venues—Prime: unified margin account, T+1 credit, consolidated reporting.
How the crypto block fits into overall wealth architecture—topic of article on crypto in private wealth.
A separate layer is succession. Access to trading account, custody, and staking positions is inherited under different rules and through different procedures; it's better to design transfer in advance, at the ownership structure level—details in material on crypto asset inheritance.
Regulation and what's important to understand
License map by perimeter:
- EEA—MiCA license from Central Bank of Ireland (June 2025, first CBI authorization for a global crypto platform): passport to all 30 EEA countries;
- UK and EU derivatives—FCA registration; European derivatives—through Cyprus structure with MiFID authorization;
- USA—SEC lawsuit from November 2023 dismissed with prejudice in March 2025, without fine or admission of guilt; staking returned to US clients.
One point remains open: Kraken has no public figure for custody insurance coverage (Coinbase and Anchorage disclose their limits), so for a large mandate this is a matter of direct inquiry and NDA. How the MiCA regime itself works—in separate breakdown.
Evolution: from exchange to financial holding
The exchange is managed by co-CEOs David Ripley and Arjun Sethi (tandem formed in fall 2024); Powell remains co-founder and chairman of the board of directors, and headquarters as of June 2025 is registered in Cheyenne, Wyoming—closer to its own bank. Strategy is read through deals and steps toward going public:
- May 2025—closed acquisition of NinjaTrader for $1.5 billion: largest merger at that time of traditional brokerage and crypto platform, plus CFTC futures business and 1.8 million traders;
- November 2025—confidential S-1 filing;
- February 2026—acquisition of token management platform Magna;
- March 2026—pause of listing until better market conditions.
The vector is clear: a public multi-product financial group in which crypto is one shelf alongside futures and tokenized securities.
Scale at pre-IPO status (Contrary Research estimates for 2024):
- revenue $1.5 billion (+128% y/y), EBITDA $380 million;
- annual trading volume $665 billion;
- 2.5 million funded accounts, $42.8 billion client assets, 15+ million users;
- venture financing $0.8–1.3 billion over history; rounds D and D1 of 2025 ($800 million; Fidelity, Citadel Securities, Abu Dhabi funds) raised valuation from $15 to $20 billion.
🍓 Kraken is the most stable of the major platforms and the most consistent in the corporate segment: exchange, Wyoming banking custody, and OTC assembled in one perimeter, in fifteen years—not a single loss of client funds. Working caveats: custody insurance coverage is disclosed in negotiations, legal regime depends on onboarding point, and Proof of Reserves confirms reserves as of snapshot date and nothing beyond that.