Crypto exchange Kraken’s parent, Payward, posted a 33% jump in revenue in 2025, driven by higher transaction volumes and gains from recent acquisitions.
The company reported revenues of $2.2 billion for the year, up from $1.6 billion in 2024, citing broad-based strength across its trading and asset-based businesses. Total transaction volumes climbed 34% year on year to $2 billion, according to co-CEO Arjun Sethi in a report released Tuesday.
Sethi said the revenue mix was evenly split, with about 47% generated from trading activities and 53% from asset-based and other sources.
The report comes as investors closely track Kraken’s potential public debut, after the company confidentially filed for an initial public offering in November.
Acquisitions fuel revenue diversification
Sethi said Payward’s acquisitions in 2025 played a key role in lifting revenues, noting that the company has drawn inspiration from tech leaders such as Meta and Amazon by unbundling its offerings to drive adoption. This approach allows “each product to be designed for a specific customer segment,” he said.
Over the past year, Payward acquired futures trading platform NinjaTrader, proprietary trading firm Breakout, derivatives venue Small Exchange, and trading automation software provider Capitalise.ai. More recently, the company also bought Backed, which operates in the tokenized equities market and supports the popular xStocks platform.
According to Sethi, these acquisitions—particularly NinjaTrader and Breakout—helped drive a 119% increase in daily average revenue trades. The report also noted that assets held on the platform rose 11% to $48.2 billion, while the number of funded accounts jumped 50% to 5.7 million.
Looking ahead, Sethi said Payward’s priority is “not maximizing any single metric in isolation,” but rather maximizing long-term, risk-adjusted throughput across a widening range of asset classes and regions.
“The company’s strategy isn’t about adding standalone products or chasing short-term cycles,” he added. “It’s about compounding efficiency across a single system.”
