By Arjun Sethi, Kraken co-CEO
Kraken was based 15 years in the past as a high-performance crypto trade constructed for skilled merchants. From the start, the corporate centered on deep liquidity, dependable execution, and infrastructure able to working by excessive market volatility.
That working philosophy formed how the enterprise developed from trade to monetary infrastructure. Slightly than increasing by layering unbiased merchandise or programs, Kraken invested in shared infrastructure: unified liquidity, centralized danger administration, and a world compliance framework that might help a number of asset courses and shopper segments concurrently.
Over time, this method reworked the corporate from a single-product trade right into a multi-business monetary platform spanning buying and selling, custody, funds, yield, lending, and market knowledge throughout each digital and conventional property.
Right this moment, Kraken is not a single-brand firm. It’s a part of a broader monetary group constructed on one unified infrastructure layer.
Introducing Payward; studying from the nice infrastructure platforms
There’s a well-established sample within the historical past of tolerating platform firms. Essentially the most sturdy firms didn’t scale by forcing each buyer right into a single interface or expertise. They scaled by constructing a shared infrastructure layer that enabled a number of merchandise to exist independently whereas compounding worth on the system degree.
After World Conflict II, industrial and monetary leaders discovered that effectivity and resilience got here from standardization beneath, not uniformity on the floor. As markets globalized and buyer wants diverged, a profitable mannequin grew to become shared infrastructure with differentiated distribution.
Fashionable expertise firms adopted the identical arc.
Amazon started as a retail market, however its long-term benefit got here from constructing logistics, success, and computing infrastructure that might be reused throughout many companies. AWS was not created as a function. It was created as a platform with near-zero marginal value to serve extra workloads as soon as the core system was in place.
Alphabet developed by separating core infrastructure from product expression. Search, YouTube, Android, and Cloud all run on shared knowledge, compute, and id layers, permitting innovation on the edge with out fragmentation on the core.
Meta constructed a household of merchandise on a single id, knowledge, and monetization graph. Fb, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger serve completely different consumer behaviors, geographies, and use instances, but compound engagement and economics as a result of they share the identical underlying programs.
Payward follows this similar mannequin in monetary providers.
Why Payward exists
Payward is the unified infrastructure layer that powers Kraken and a rising household of merchandise, together with NinjaTrader, Breakout, xStocks, and future platforms but to be launched.
Slightly than forcing all customers right into a single “Frankenstein” interface, Payward permits every product to be designed for a particular buyer section, regulatory regime, and use case, whereas sharing:
- One world liquidity pool
- One danger and margin engine
- One collateral and settlement system
- One compliance and licensing framework
This method is not only cleaner from a product standpoint. We imagine it’s mathematically superior.
As soon as the infrastructure is constructed, the marginal value of launching and working extra merchandise approaches zero relative to the worth they add. Every new floor will increase complete throughput, property on platform, and liquidity depth with out duplicating danger, capital, or regulatory effort.
Serving a segmented world market
Monetary providers are inherently segmented. Retail customers, skilled merchants, establishments, enterprises, and regional markets all require completely different interfaces, workflows, and regulatory remedies.
Making an attempt to serve all of them by a single UI degrades the expertise for everybody.
Payward’s mannequin permits Kraken to fulfill clients the place they’re:
- Shopper merchandise optimized for simplicity and belief
- Professional platforms optimized for execution and management
- Institutional choices optimized for scale, reporting, and governance
- Area-specific merchandise tailor-made to native cost rails and laws
All of this operates on the identical world system, throughout greater than 190 international locations and territories and over 100 licenses.
We imagine this permits progress by decreasing friction, rising capital effectivity, and increasing entry to fashionable monetary infrastructure.
The strategic end result
By separating infrastructure from product expression, Payward ensures that innovation doesn’t come on the expense of management, danger self-discipline, or regulatory integrity.
Because the world of economic providers continues to fragment by geography, regulation, and consumer conduct, we imagine this mannequin permits Kraken to scale responsibly, launch quicker, and compound worth on the platform degree.
Payward isn’t a holding firm in identify solely. It’s the system that enables Kraken to behave like infrastructure moderately than an app.
Payward is the dad or mum entity and working platform that powers Kraken and an increasing household of complementary merchandise.
The identify Payward, chosen on the firm’s founding, displays a long-standing dedication to transferring finance ahead towards a extra open, environment friendly, and globally accessible monetary system. Traditionally, Payward operated largely behind the scenes because the authorized and technical basis of Kraken.
Starting in 2025, Payward has taken on a extra specific function because the infrastructure layer that powers a number of product surfaces and interfaces.
Payward’s platform spans:
- Excessive-performance trade expertise
- Deeply pooled world liquidity
- Unified danger and margin programs
- Shared compliance and regulatory infrastructure
- A broad portfolio of licenses throughout crypto, funds, buying and selling, and custody
This superinfrastructure permits Payward to launch and function distinct merchandise quickly, at low marginal value, whereas compounding liquidity, property on platform, and engagement throughout your entire ecosystem.
Kraken stays the flagship multi-asset platform, however Payward’s infrastructure additionally powers:
- NinjaTrader, a number one retail futures platform
- CF Benchmarks, a world index and reference knowledge supplier
- Breakout, a crypto-native proprietary buying and selling and analysis platform
- xStocks, a world tokenized equities platform
Payward gives a consolidated view of the platform that underpins all of those merchandise. Kraken isn’t going away. It stays the first client and institutional model. Going ahead, ecosystem-wide bulletins and platform updates shall be communicated by www.payward.com.
Product and platform growth in 2025
This was a 12 months outlined not simply by growth, however by execution. We shipped throughout your entire product suite – launching, scaling, and integrating at a tempo that mirrored each operational maturity and long-term conviction. Development was fueled by robust core product momentum and significant contributions from current acquisitions. Over the course of the 12 months, we enhanced our core experiences, launched solely new interfaces, expanded our attain by new geos, asset courses, licensing, and extra.
Shopper
Payward expanded its client footprint with merchandise designed to develop property on platform and prolong on a regular basis monetary use instances:
- Krak App and Krak Card, a world cash app for funds, financial savings, and spending, launched in partnership with Mastercard
- Kraken+, a premium subscription providing
- Bundles, enabling simplified portfolio diversification
Skilled merchants
- Kraken VIP, a high-touch service mannequin for ultra-high-net-worth shoppers
- Kraken Professional reached baseline round-trip latencies beneath 2ms for the primary time with VPC peering with AWS and DC3 with Beeks.
- Launched new Github REST and WebSocket SDKs for spot and futures to enhance developer and integration expertise.
- Launched FIX API for each spot and futures buying and selling, enabling sturdy and standardized connectivity for the biggest establishments and intermediaries.
- Kraken Professional launched Unified Pockets to consolidate spot, margin, and futures balances for cross margining for capital effectivity.
- Elevated leverage for margin buying and selling as much as 10x for bigger publicity and dynamic charges to raised worth merchandise throughout risky markets.
- Launched Kraken Market Participation Program to incentivize exercise from buying and selling companies.
- New order sorts with OCO and FOK for extra order customization.
- NinjaTrader launched NinjaTrader Prop and Tradovate Prop, giving merchants a toolkit for each stage of their prop journey
Institutional and B2B
Payward prolonged its infrastructure into institutional and embedded finance use instances:
Geographic and growth and new asset courses
Regulatory and coverage management
Payward continued to construct one of many {industry}’s most complete regulatory footprints:
- Secured MiCA approval from the Central Financial institution of Eire
- Obtained a MiFID license within the EU
- Secured an EMI license within the UK
- Actively engaged with policymakers, regulators and {industry} stakeholders the world over to help the creation of sturdy regulatory frameworks
This regulatory basis permits Payward to help a number of asset courses and shopper segments inside native frameworks whereas working on a shared world platform.
M&A and strategic progress
In 2025, Payward executed a disciplined M&A technique centered on finishing and increasing its infrastructure:
- NinjaTrader, accelerating Payward’s evolution right into a multi-asset, skilled buying and selling platform
- Breakout, enabling evaluation-based proprietary buying and selling and capital entry
- Small Trade, enhancing Payward’s U.S. derivatives infrastructure below CFTC regulation
- Capitalise.ai, enabling no-code buying and selling automation
In January 2026, Payward closed the acquisition of Backed, absolutely verticalizing the xStocks platform by integrating issuance, buying and selling, and settlement right into a single system.
Monetary efficiency
2025 established a brand new baseline for Payward’s scale and earnings energy. Adjusted income reached $2.2 billion, representing 33% year-over-year progress, pushed by broad-based efficiency throughout buying and selling and asset-based companies.
Adjusted EBITDA totaled $531 million, up 26% year-over-year, reflecting significant working leverage inherent within the unified platform.
Income was nicely balanced, with roughly 47% from trading-based income and 53% from asset-based and different income. Buying and selling income was supported by deep liquidity and sustained engagement, whereas asset-based income scaled with property on platform by custody, yield, funds, and financing.
Complete platform transaction quantity reached $2.0 trillion, up 34% year-over-year. Property on platform elevated to $48.5 billion, up 12% year-over-year. Funded accounts grew to five.7 million, a 50% improve versus 2024. Futures DARTs rose 119%, pushed by NinjaTrader and Breakout integration and expanded futures choices.
This fall 2025 resilience
This fall 2025 demonstrated the resilience of Payward’s infrastructure throughout heightened volatility. Regardless of industry-wide softness, the platform generated $625 million in adjusted income and $84 million in adjusted EBITDA.
Throughout October’s historic liquidation occasion, during which greater than $19 billion in leveraged positions have been liquidated throughout the {industry} in roughly 24 hours, Payward’s platform operated with out disruption. Execution high quality, danger programs, and liquidity held up exactly as designed.
Transparency by Proof of Reserves
Payward accomplished its newest quarterly Proof of Reserves as of December 31, 2025. Shoppers can independently confirm that their property are absolutely backed on-chain and included within the report, which is validated by a third-party accounting agency.
Kraken pioneered common Proof of Reserves and stays one of many few platforms to conduct this course of constantly.
Wanting forward
Payward enters the following part of its evolution with a transparent goal: to extend throughput on a unified world monetary infrastructure whereas preserving the chance, belief, and regulatory invariants that outline the platform.
The corporate’s technique isn’t pushed by including standalone merchandise or chasing short-term cycles. It’s pushed by compounding effectivity throughout a single system. As property on platform develop, collateral turns into extra productive. As liquidity deepens, buying and selling quantity scales with out requiring increased take charges. As settlement, custody, and funds converge on the identical rails, new asset courses will be launched with out fragmenting danger or operations.
In sensible phrases, we imagine the following part of progress will come from three reinforcing vectors.
First, increasing the set of property that may function natively on the platform. Crypto was the primary asset class to maneuver onto programmable, always-on rails. Tokenized equities, FX, futures, and real-world property prolong that very same infrastructure into bigger, extra sturdy markets. As a result of Payward’s structure is asset-agnostic, these additions improve platform throughput moderately than complexity.
Second, rising the productiveness and length of property on platform. Custody, funds, yield, financing, and settlement exercise permit balances to help a number of financial makes use of over time. This improves capital effectivity and drives a rising share of asset-based income that’s much less delicate to buying and selling volatility.
Third, world growth that’s additive moderately than extractive. Payward isn’t replicating infrastructure market by market. A single world core helps localized onramps, compliance, and distribution. As adoption accelerates in areas the place legacy monetary rails are inefficient, the identical platform permits new monetary exercise with out requiring incremental reinvention.
Threat administration stays central to this technique. Margin will proceed to be designed as a security mechanism moderately than a income lever. Positions stay absolutely collateralized, liquidation stays deterministic, and the platform will proceed to prioritize predictable conduct below stress over peak-cycle optimization.
Wanting ahead, Payward’s focus isn’t on maximizing any single metric in isolation. It’s on maximizing long-run, risk-adjusted throughput throughout a rising set of asset courses and geographies. The monetary ends in 2025 mirror the early levels of this compounding mannequin. The years forward are about scaling it responsibly.
Non-GAAP metrics
Adjusted Income and Adjusted EBITDA are non-GAAP monetary measures utilized by Administration internally to know, handle, and consider the enterprise and make working selections. We imagine these measures present extra perception into our operational efficiency and assist facilitate comparisons for the interval indicated. Adjusted income is complete income in accordance with GAAP, much less (i) buying and selling prices and (ii) (Acquire) loss on buying and selling actions. We imagine Adjusted Income permits for larger comparability to look exchanges. Adjusted EBITDA is web earnings (loss), adjusted to exclude (i) different earnings (loss), web and different non-recurring gadgets, (ii) (acquire) loss on crypto, web, (iii) earnings tax expense, (iv) curiosity expense from financing actions, (v) depreciation and amortization, (vi) stock-based compensation expense, (vii) restructuring prices, (viii) transaction-related prices and (ix) non-recurring authorized settlements. Adjusted EBITDA excludes irregular, non-recurring, and/or discretionary bills and is meant to supply a clearer view of the corporate’s core profitability. Offered metrics embrace NinjaTrader ranging from Could 1, 2025 onward and Breakout from September 2025 onward. Prior durations have been revised to adapt to present interval presentation.
Key working metrics
Complete Platform Transaction Quantity: Complete platform transaction quantity represents the combination notional worth, expressed in U.S. greenback phrases, of all transactions executed throughout the Firm’s platforms throughout the interval offered. This consists of transaction exercise in Spot, Margin, Shopper, OTC Spot, Equities, xStocks, Krak, Earn and Funding (throughout all platforms).
Property on Platform (finish of interval): Complete property on platform represents the combination worth, expressed in U.S. greenback phrases, of property held by the Firm’s clients throughout all merchandise and asset sorts, together with crypto property, equities and fiat currencies, measured as of the final day of the fiscal quarter. This metric consists of property held on the Firm’s platforms in addition to property held by affiliated platforms, together with NinjaTrader.
Funded Accounts (finish of interval): Funded accounts signify the full variety of distinct buyer accounts throughout the Firm’s platforms and merchandise that maintained a steadiness larger than zero as of the final day of the fiscal quarter. Sub-accounts are counted as separate accounts for functions of this metric. Complete funded accounts embrace accounts held by affiliated platforms, together with NinjaTrader.
Futures Day by day Common Income Trades (DARTs): Futures DARTs represents each day common income trades throughout TradFi futures and perpetual crypto futures, calculated as: complete variety of futures trades/buying and selling days.
Buying and selling days: Buying and selling days are calculated as the full variety of calendar days within the quarter.
The knowledge offered on this communications is for informational functions solely and doesn’t represent a suggestion, solicitation, or advice to purchase or promote any token, safety or monetary instrument. It isn’t meant as, and shall not be relied upon as, funding, monetary, authorized or tax recommendation. Previous efficiency isn’t essentially indicative of future outcomes.
