Payward Revenues Soar 33% as Traders Flock to Kraken

Kraken’s parent company, Payward, reported 2025 revenue of $2.2 billion, a 33% increase from the prior year, driven by a combination of higher trading activity and strong performance from newly integrated businesses. For the year, total transaction volumes reached $2 billion, up 34% year over year, signaling robust activity across the platform as it leveraged a strategic wave of acquisitions to broaden its revenue base. Payward described the mix of income as well balanced, with about 47% derived from trading revenue and the remaining 53% from asset-based and other sources. The results come as the group advances toward a potential public listing after filing confidentially for an IPO in November, underscoring a broader push to diversify beyond traditional exchange services into broader financial technology offerings.

Key takeaways

• 2025 revenue rose to $2.2 billion, up 33% from $1.6 billion in 2024, reflecting gains across trading and asset-backed activities.
• Total transaction volumes climbed to $2 billion, a 34% year-over-year increase, signaling stronger platform usage.
• Revenue mix remained balanced: roughly 47% from trading activity and 53% from asset-based and other revenues, indicating diversified income streams.
• Strategic acquisitions—NinjaTrader, Breakout, Small Exchange, Capitalise.ai, and Backed—expanded product offerings and supported a 119% rise in daily average revenue trades.
• Assets on the platform grew to $48.2 billion, with funded accounts increasing 50% to 5.7 million, highlighting growing user engagement and custody depth.

Sentiment: Bullish

Market context: The results align with a crypto ecosystem where exchange activity remains sensitive to macro trends and regulatory developments, while diversified product lines help firms capture a broader share of trading and asset-management activity. Payward’s performance underscores a shift toward modular offerings and cross-segment efficiency within a consolidating market.

Why it matters

The 2025 performance marks a notable inflection for Payward as it monetizes scale and breadth. By deriving nearly half of its revenue from trading while more than half comes from asset-based and ancillary services, the group appears to be hedging against volatility in a single segment. This balance matters for users and investors who seek a platform capable of weathering cyclical swings in crypto markets while continuing to generate recurring income from tokenized assets, derivatives, and automated trading tools.

Central to this shift is Payward’s active pursuit of product-level specialization. The company has drawn inspiration from tech giants in how it segments its offerings so each product tackles a distinct customer segment. This approach—designed to boost usage by making each product a tailored solution—addresses both retail and institutional needs, from advanced traders seeking derivative exposure to users exploring tokenized stock concepts. The acquisitions carried out over 2025 are the operational backbone of that strategy, providing Payward with more tools to engage users across geographies and risk appetites.

The 119% increase in daily average revenue trades underscores the impact of integrating platforms like NinjaTrader and Breakout, which broaden trading capabilities and expand the client base. While NinjaTrader’s ecosystem emphasizes futures and active trading, Breakout adds a proprietary-trading edge that helps Payward capture higher-margin activity. Together, these assets contribute to a more resilient revenue engine by feeding more orders through Payward’s systems and enabling a wider set of use cases for clients. The full effect of these acquisitions—along with Small Exchange and Capitalise.ai—appears in the asset mix and in the expansion of both trading and automation-enabled workflows on the platform.

Beyond trading desks, Payward’s foray into tokenized assets and AI-driven automation signals a broader strategic convergence. The purchase of Backed—a company active in tokenized stocks and the backbone of the xStocks platform—signals Payward’s intent to offer institutional-grade access to tokenized equity products. This kind of diversification aligns with industry trends toward hybrid models that blend traditional financial instruments with digital representations, expanding the addressable market for crypto-enabled finance. The company’s asset base, reported at $48.2 billion, and its burgeoning funded account base—5.7 million—indicate a growing footprint that could attract further liquidity and potential listing interest from a broader investor audience.

In addition to the earnings figures, Payward’s leadership emphasized a long-term, risk-adjusted throughput strategy over chasing short-term cyclic metrics. Arjun Sethi, Payward’s co-CEO, described a path focused on compound efficiency across a single system rather than pursuing a handful of standalone products. This philosophy suggests a framework where future growth hinges on the integration of existing platforms, the cross-pollination of product capabilities, and the sustained scaling of operations across multiple asset classes and jurisdictions. The company’s public-listing ambitions, having progressed to a confidential IPO filing in November, indicate that Payward seeks to translate its internal efficiencies into external value for a wider pool of investors while continuing to evolve its platform economics.

The disclosed results also reflect a broader industry pattern where sizable crypto-focused platforms are layering revenue streams to reduce reliance on a single line item, all while expanding product suites to attract diverse participant cohorts. The highlighted acquisitions demonstrate Payward’s appetite for strategic bets that can be integrated into a unified operating model, enabling cadence and scale without sacrificing the quality of user experience.

Looking ahead, Payward’s management continues to frame growth as a systemic improvement—an emphasis on operational efficiency, cross-product usage, and geographic diversification rather than chasing isolated performance metrics. The confidential IPO filing from November remains a key milestone, offering a framework for how Payward intends to position its diversified platform to investors. The earnings narrative, underpinned by rising assets and a widening product footprint, suggests a company that is betting on a longer horizon where liquidity, product breadth, and disciplined integration drive sustainable returns rather than a single blockbuster quarter.

What to watch next

• Progress and timing of the confidential IPO filing: any updates on the path to a public listing and the anticipated markets open date.
• Performance of key acquisitions (NinjaTrader, Breakout, Small Exchange, Capitalise.ai, Backed) and their contribution to trading volumes and revenue mix in 2026.
• Trends in assets under custody and funded accounts, with any new geography or client segments adding material volume.
• Regulatory developments and macro conditions that could influence liquidity, market structure, or crypto-adjacent financial products.

Sources & verification

• Payward/ Kraken 2025 financials report, detailing revenue, volumes, and the asset mix.
• Confidential IPO filing status and coverage in November, outlining the company’s listing trajectory.
• Breakout acquisition and related product diversification mentioned in Kraken’s filings.
• Small Exchange and Capitalise.ai acquisitions and their impact on the platform’s trading and automation capabilities.
• Backed and tokenization-related developments within the Payward ecosystem and their role in the xStocks framework.

This article was originally published as Payward Revenues Soar 33% as Traders Flock to Kraken on Crypto Breaking News – your trusted source for crypto news, Bitcoin news, and blockchain updates.