Kraken (cryptocurrency exchange)

Kraken (legally named Payward, Inc.) is a US-based cryptocurrency exchange founded in 2011. Beyond cryptocurrencies, in most US states the exchange facilitates the trading of stocks, futures, and ETFs.[3] Kraken was the first cryptocurrency company to obtain a bank charter. In 2025 it began allowing the trading of tokenized equities by non-US customers. In 2025 it had $207 billion in quarterly trading volume, and was ranked the world's fourteenth-largest crypto exchange.

History

Founding and early development (2011–2014)

Kraken was founded in 2011 in San Francisco by Thanh Luu, Michael Gronager, and Jesse Powell,[4] the latter of whom had previously founded an internet gaming startup. Before co-founding Kraken, in 2011 Powell consulted for Mt. Gox, an early bitcoin exchange in Japan, to help it recover from a hacking attack. After observing a number of security issues at Mt. Gox, Powell began working on an alternative exchange

Diversification (2024–present)

products	Cryptocurrency exchange Electronic funds transfer‡R2R‡

website	https://kraken.com

In March 2024, Kraken introduced a dedicated division for institutional investors, Kraken Institutional.[38] Shortly after the launch, they also released the Kraken Wallet, a multi-chain crypto wallet supporting eight blockchains.[39] In October 2024, the company laid off 15% of its workers, or around 400 of the company's 2,600 employees. Arjun Sethi was named co-CEO along with Dave Ripley.[40] In November 2024, Kraken and a consortium of crypto firms launched the Global Dollar Network, a joint stablecoin pegged to the US dollar.[41] At the end of 2024, Kraken had 2.6 million funded accounts, with $42.8 billion in assets held on the platform.[42] Its revenue doubled that year to $1.5 billion, with adjusted annual earnings of $380 million.[43]

In March 2025, it was reported that Kraken, as Payward Inc.,[44] was planning for an early 2026 IPO.[45] In April 2025, Kraken began offering a version of its trading platform, named Embed, to financial service companies. Bunq, a European digital bank based in Amsterdam, was the first to use the service, which allows financial institutions to give their clients access to crypto trading.[46] In 2025, along with the company AlpacaDB, Kraken began offering commission-free trading in New Jersey, Connecticut, Wyoming and Rhode Island, with plans to expand to other markets.[45]

In May 2025,[47] the company acquired NinjaTrader, a retail futures trading platform, for $1.5 billion in an effort to expand into multiple asset classes and grow its user base. Reuters reported that the deal highlighted "the deepening ties between crypto companies and traditional financial firms as digital assets gain wider acceptance."[48] Kraken launched its regulated crypto derivatives offering in Europe on May 20, 2025, after having acquired a license in Cyprus earlier that year.[49] That month, it announced it would launch trading in "tokenized equities" for non-US customers, with stock in companies such as Apple, Tesla, and Nvidia to be tradable on its digital ledger.[50] The feature went live in June.[51] In October 2025, Kraken announced that it acquired the Small Exchange from IG Group

In March 2025, Kraken's parent company Payward partnered with Nasdaq to develop tokenization infrastructure aimed at enabling blockchain-based trading of financial assets.[56]

Controversies

Government regulator investigations

Kraken formally left the New York jurisdiction in August 2015, citing in part the state's BitLicense. In April 2018, Kraken declined a request for information by the New York Attorney General's Office, which was studying the measures taken by cryptocurrency exchanges to protect customers from market manipulation and money laundering. In its refusal, Kraken cited costs associated with compiling the information, also noting it had left the New York market due to the state being "hostile" to crypto.[57] Later that year, the New York attorney general released a report suggesting "customers would do well to avoid platforms" that hadn't contributed to the report, as the platforms could be violating New York law, and referred Kraken, along with Binance and Gate.io, to New York State Department of Financial Services for potential violation of local virtual currency regulations.[58][59]

After Kraken self-reported potential violations, in March 2019 the exchange was investigated by the Office of Foreign Assets Control for potential violation of sanction-regimes by allowing trade with customers based in Iran. A settlement was reached in November 2022, with Kraken paying a fine of $362,000 and agreeing to "invest an additional $100,000 in certain sanctions compliance controls."[60] In late September 2021, Kraken agreed to pay a fine of $1.25 million to settle claims by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission that it had offered unregistered margin trading.[61]

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) initiated civil proceedings in 2023 against Bit Trade, Kraken's operator in Australia, for "failing to comply" with margin trading rules.[62] In August 2024, Australia's Federal Court ordered Bit Trade[63] to pay a A$8 million ($5.1 million) fine for incorrectly issuing a credit facility to 1,100 customers.[62]

In February 2023, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) categorized Kraken's staking service as an illegal sale of securities.[64] Kraken agreed to a $30-million settlement without admitting or denying the allegations, and agreed to cease offering its staking service in the US. Its international staking services stayed in place.[65] In 2025, Kraken introduced a new staking product for a number of US states.[66]

The SEC sued Kraken in November 2023 in the case SEC v Payward Inc et al, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No. 23-06003.[67] The SEC alleged that Kraken had been operating as a securities exchange without registering as such.[68] Kraken was also accused of mixing customer assets with its own funds,[69] which Kraken denied.[67] Kraken argued that they did not list securities and there was no US law requiring the registration of crypto exchanges.[70] The SEC agreed to drop the lawsuit in March 2025, no longer seeking to regulate the company as a stock exchange.[71]

Identifying Glassdoor reviewers

In May 2019, Kraken filed a motion in California's Marin County Superior Court attempting to identify ten anonymous reviewers on Glassdoor.[72][73] Kraken wanted to sue them for allegedly breaching their severance contract. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, saying it represented the anonymous reviewers, claimed in 2020 that identifying the reviewers would harm their First Amendment free-speech rights and have a chilling effect on the expression of others.[74] In 2022, the court ordered Glassdoor to disclose the real identity of some reviewers.

Work culture and layoffs

In 2019, Powell suggested that parenting was a distraction to being productive and critiqued the economic viability of parental leaves; he went on to question whether choosing to not abide by relevant governmental regulations was a risk worth taking.[60] In June 2022, Powell urged employees in a work meeting to reject the usage of preferred gender pronouns; he then opened a Slack channel to debate whether people should be allowed to choose their gender but not their race or ethnicity. The next day, Kraken released a "culture document" which outlined the libertarian values that it asserted were to be obeyed at work. Among other things, employees were prohibited from labelling others' comments as "toxic, hateful, racist", etc., and particular emphasis was assigned on how "offensiveness" was not forbidden. Powell and his fellow executives encouraged employees who disagreed with the policy to quit, and offered four months' severance for those who opted to do so.[75][76]

In November 2022, Kraken laid off about 1,100 employees –approximately 30 percent of its workforce.[77]

trading name	Kraken
native name lang	en
type	Private
industry	Financial services Cryptocurrency
founded	July 28, 2011
founder	Jesse Powell
hq location city	San Francisco, California
hq location country	U.S.
key people	Arjun Sethi (co-CEO) Dave Ripley (co-CEO)‡R1R‡

Kraken (cryptocurrency exchange)

History

Founding and early development (2011–2014)

Expansion and acquisitions (2015–2020)

Global operations (2021–2023)

Diversification (2024–present)

Controversies

Government regulator investigations

Identifying Glassdoor reviewers

Work culture and layoffs

Sponsorship

Formula 1

Association football

See also

External links

References