Kraken has been operating since 2011 — the oldest of the major active crypto exchanges: the platform has traded through every market cycle since, including the Mt. Gox and FTX collapses, and has reported no loss of client funds 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.
📊 The 2026 financial and product figures below come from Payward's Q2 2026 investor call (August 14, 2026): a private company's voluntary pre-IPO disclosure, without an independent audit and without regulatory filings against which it could be reconciled.
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.
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; reserves and liabilities are reported to the Wyoming Division of Banking on the SPDI call report form;
- 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 — Euroclear, Clearstream and Pershing.
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 L2 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.
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 topic 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.
How the Payward group is structured
The platform's legal entity is Payward. The group is built not as a set of disconnected products but as a single technology platform — one matching engine, one risk engine, one collateral and settlement core — with four business lines on top of it:
| Pillar | Products | Infrastructure |
|---|---|---|
| Payward Trading | Spot, derivatives, margin, equities, prop, APIs | Matching engines & order books, risk engines, brokerage |
| Payward Banking | Custody, payments, lending, private banking | Cards, fiat & crypto rails, wallets, lending books |
| Payward Asset Management | Private credit, venture, structured products, listings | Funds, prime platform, listings platform, portfolios |
| Payward Services | Trading, funding, tokenization, benchmarking (B2B API) | B2B APIs & SDKs, yield infrastructure, tokenization infrastructure, indices |
The caveat that matters for a client: a shared infrastructure stack is not a shared risk pool. Client assets stay segregated by jurisdiction, and regulated activity is booked wherever the relevant licence sits — what is shared is the code and the infrastructure, not client-facing risk exposure.
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.
Across all perimeters the group claims more than 100 regulatory licences and registrations worldwide — money transmission, payments, trust, brokerage and clearing. The figure is the company's own, stated on its Q2 2026 investor call, and has not been reconciled line by line against regulators' registers: Payward publishes neither a jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction licence list nor, pre-IPO, regulatory filings. Whether a specific licence exists has to be checked in the register of the regulator under which onboarding takes place.
Full banking status remains a possible next step rather than a settled question. The SPDI is already a full-reserve bank chartered at the U.S. state level, but with a narrower set of powers than a commercial bank charter. The Q4 2026 roadmap lists Fedwire virtual accounts and a direct Federal Reserve account (Fed master account) — which would give settlement inside the Fed system without a correspondent bank. That is a company plan, not an accomplished fact: the timing and outcome of such applications are not guaranteed.
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 is covered separately.
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.
Q/A
How does Kraken store client crypto?
Cold storage at the core, with a banking layer on top: Kraken Financial was the first in the US to receive Wyoming's SPDI charter (September 2020), a banking form created specifically for digital assets. Reserves are publicly verified through Proof of Reserves.
What is the SPDI charter and what does it give a client?
SPDI (special purpose depository institution) is a banking charter Wyoming created in 2019 for digital assets: the depository must hold full reserves and cannot lend out client assets. For the client it means custody under banking supervision rather than just an exchange wallet.
Is Kraken regulated in Europe?
Yes — Kraken holds a MiCA licence, the EU's unified regime for crypto services. The platform itself has operated since 2011: the oldest of the major active exchanges, having weathered every market cycle.
Is Kraken suitable for institutions and large capital?
That segment is served by Kraken Prime: brokerage, custody and OTC in one stack. Maker/taker fees fall from 0.25%/0.40% to 0.00%/0.08–0.10% at 30-day volume above $10 million; global clients get futures with up to 50x leverage.