Kraken parent Payward reported $507 million in adjusted revenue for the first quarter of 2026, despite weaker crypto-trading conditions. The company said product growth, acquisitions, and service expansion helped support performance during a difficult market period.
According to the official release, Payward is expanding beyond spot crypto trading. The company is building across derivatives, tokenized assets, payments infrastructure, and other financial services as it works to reduce dependence on market cycles.
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Kraken Parent Payward Trading Volume Reaches $357B
Kraken parent Payward said total trading volume reached $357 billion in the quarter. The outcome coincided with BTC dropping about 22%, and the overall cryptocurrency market experiencing a decline of approximately 23%.
Industry spot trading volume also fell by some 38% over the same period. Nonetheless, Kraken’s market share on the spot market has increased from approximately 3.5% in mid-2025 to 5.2% in March 2026.
Payward revealed that it held around 59% of its highest trading volume, as compared to previous cycles. During the weaker market period, the company added that this level is better than many of its competitors.
Futures trading was one of the stronger areas for the business. Futures DARTs rose 51% driven by platform development, NinjaTrader, and Breakout and the overall expansion of futures products.
Kraken parent Payward also reported about $18 million in adjusted EBITDA. The reduced profit level was deliberate, as the company continued to invest in products, technology, and regulatory systems,” the company said.
“We’re not optimizing for today’s EBITDA. We’re building what we believe wins tomorrow.” Payward co-CEO Arjun Sethi said in the company update.
Payward Platform Assets Reach $40B
The firm reported that now it has approximately $40 billion in assets on the platform. This was up 11% from the previous year, and funded accounts grew 47% to 6.1 million.
Kraken parent Payward also expanded through acquisitions during the quarter. In January 2026 it acquired Backed Finance to enable tokenized stocks, and then in February it bought Magna to enable token distribution and lifecycle management.
The company also announced the launch of stock trading on Kraken Desktop. It had added futures markets in oil and gold as well as stock indexes and also yield products and expanded margin trading.
Payward was also continuing to grow its tokenized equities product, xStocks. The product is designed to grow to more than 500 assets over time, the company said.
Kraken parent Payward noted that its broader vision is for the integration of trading, settlement, and payments all within a single financial system. It also finished its quarterly Proof of Reserves as of March 31, 2026.
The reserve review allows users to check that customer funds are fully backed. Payward stated the verification was based on on-chain data and checked by an independent accounting firm.
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