Overview

Kraken (legally named Payward, Inc.) is a US-based cryptocurrency exchange, founded in 2011. It is the first cryptocurrency company to obtain a bank charter. In 2025, Kraken began allowing the trading of tokenized equities by non-US customers.

By 2025, it had $207 billion in quarterly trading volume and was ranked the world's fourteenth-largest crypto exchange. Beyond cryptocurrencies, in most US states the exchange also facilitates the trading of stocks, futures, and ETFs.

Founding and early development (2011–2014)

Kraken was founded in 2011 in San Francisco by Thanh Luu, Michael Gronager, and Jesse Powell, 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 with security controls as its foundation. Kraken was co-founded in July 2011, with Payward as its parent company.

Kraken then launched publicly in September 2013, initially offering bitcoin, Litecoin, and euro trades before adding additional currencies and margin trading.

In March 2014, Kraken received a $5 million series A investment from Hummingbird Ventures and Bitcoin Opportunity Fund. A month later, Kraken became one of the first bitcoin exchanges to have its data included on Bloomberg Terminal. The Mt. Gox crypto exchange went bankrupt in 2014 after a security breach, and in the following two months Kraken's user base grew by 50%. Due to avoiding security breaches, Kraken was chosen by the Mt. Gox bankruptcy trustees to assist with liquidating the company, investigating lost bitcoins, and helping pay back creditors.

Expansion and acquisitions (2015–2020)

In 2015, Kraken became the first exchange to list Ethereum's ether coin. Kraken then opened the first dark pool for bitcoins in June 2015. In January 2016, Kraken purchased Coinsetter, a bitcoin exchange based in New York City, and Cavirtex, Canada's first bitcoin exchange. It fully absorbed both brands, with client accounts automatically transferred over to Kraken. In February 2016, Kraken acquired both the Dutch exchange CleverCoin and Glidera, a cryptocurrency wallet service. Also that February, SBI Group led a series B investment round into Kraken.

Kraken acquired Cryptowatch, a charting and trading platform, in March 2017, and, by December 2017, Kraken claimed to be registering up to 50,000 new users a day. It announced closure of its services in Japan in April 2018, citing rising costs of doing business; it returned to the Japanese market in 2020. In February 2019, Kraken acquired Crypto Facilities, a British derivatives trading firm. In June 2019, Kraken received $13.5 million from 2,263 individual investors via a special-purpose vehicle.

In September 2020, Kraken Financial was granted a special purpose depository institution (SPDI) charter in Wyoming, becoming the first cryptocurrency exchange to hold a bank charter in the United States.

Global operations (2021–2023)

Kraken had 6 million clients by early 2021, with the platform allowing trades in 60 digital assets and seven traditional currencies. Kraken released a mobile app for international users in January 2021, which became available in the United States that June. Also in 2021, Kraken acquired Staked, a non-custodial staking platform. In early 2021, Kraken sought additional funding from investors at a valuation of over $20 billion, with Tribe Capital becoming the company's second largest institutional investor behind Hummingbird Ventures, and Arjun Sethi being appointed to the board of directors.

With a valuation over $1 billion, Kraken became classified as a unicorn company. In April 2023, Dave Ripley—then chief operating officer—replaced Powell as CEO, with Powell becoming chairman.

The company closed operations in Japan for the second time in February 2023, citing market conditions and a weak global crypto market. Kraken closed its Abu Dhabi office in February 2023 as well, after securing a license to operate in the UAE less than a year prior. In May 2023, Kraken's chief legal officer testified before Congress on legislative and regulatory issues related to crypto markets.

After Kraken launched a beta version of its non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace in November 2022, it officially launched NFT trading in June 2023, with users able to pay for listings via fiat or cryptocurrency. In September 2023, Bloomberg reported that Kraken planned to trade outside cryptocurrency for the first time, and would begin offering trading in US-listed stocks and exchange-traded funds. Kraken expanded in Europe during 2023, adding virtual asset service provider (VASP) licenses in Ireland, Italy, and Spain.

In October 2023, Kraken acquired the Netherlands-based crypto-exchange Coin Meester B.V. (BCM).

Diversification (2024–present)

In March 2024, Kraken introduced a dedicated division for institutional investors, Kraken Institutional. Shortly after the launch, they also released the Kraken Wallet, a multi-chain crypto wallet supporting eight blockchains. 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. In November 2024, Kraken and a consortium of crypto firms launched the Global Dollar Network, a joint stablecoin pegged to the US dollar.

At the end of 2024, Kraken had 2.6 million funded accounts, with $42.8 billion in assets held on the platform. Its revenue doubled that year to $1.5 billion, with adjusted annual earnings of $380 million.

In May 2025, 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." Kraken launched its regulated crypto derivatives offering in Europe on May 20, 2025, after having acquired a license in Cyprus earlier that year.

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. The feature went live in June. In October 2025, Kraken announced that it acquired the Small Exchange from IG Group. Previously, IG Group had acquired the exchange from Foris DAX Markets in April 2023. Kraken's website in early 2025 listed $207 billion in quarterly trading volume.

With 15 million users, its accounts facilitated buying and selling in 560 cryptocurrencies, as well as the trading of 11,000 stocks and ETFs in certain US states, and was ranked the world's fourteenth-largest crypto exchange.

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