Kraken Parent Payward Doubles Spot Market Share as EBITDA Slumps 66%

Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, nearly doubled its share of global spot trading to 6.5% in September from 3.3% a year earlier, according to financial results released Friday. The gain in share coincided with a 66% year-over-year drop in adjusted EBITDA, which fell to $60 million from $178.6 million.

The two figures measure different things, and the distinction matters. Market share tracks Payward's portion of global spot trading across its platforms in September, while quarterly transaction volume spans multiple products, including spot, margin, equities, payments and certain derivatives. Total transaction volume was $353 billion in the third quarter, down 30% from a year earlier.

In plain words: Payward shrank less than its competitors did, but it still shrank.

What is driving the shift beyond trading fees?

Total platform margin, a measure Payward introduced this quarter to replace adjusted revenue, fell 12% year over year to $487 million. The new metric adds a deduction for staking rewards paid to customers, which makes cross-period comparisons with previously reported revenue figures imperfect.

Payward has spent two years acquiring businesses that generate revenue less dependent on trading activity:

• futures broker NinjaTrader and proprietary trading firm Breakout, both in 2025;
• US-regulated derivatives platform Bitnomial in May 2026;
• stablecoin payments and card-issuing firm Reap in July.

Those units contributed to a broader revenue mix. The number of derivatives contracts carrying per-contract fees rose 84% to 66 million. Margin from subscriptions, trader evaluations and other paid services rose 59% to $125 million. The company did not quantify either Breakout's or Reap's individual contribution to the quarter — a gap investors should note when weighing acquisition returns.

Did earnings recover from the second quarter?

Yes, partly. Total transaction volume rose 22% from the second quarter, and total platform margin increased 12% to $487 million from $436 million. Adjusted EBITDA climbed to $60 million from $23 million, with its margin relative to total platform margin rising to 12% from 5%.

The improvement was not driven by trading alone. Margin earned from assets customers hold on the platforms, including staking-related services, rose 26% to $128 million — roughly half of the $51 million quarterly increase in total platform margin. Asset- and access-based services accounted for 52% of total platform margin, up from 46% a year earlier.

Takeaway: more than half of Payward's margin now comes from services that do not depend directly on trading volume, though the company has not disclosed how much of that stems from acquisitions versus organic growth.

What does this mean for the IPO?

Payward confidentially filed for a US IPO in November 2025 but paused the plans in March as market conditions weakened. By September, the earliest listing window under consideration was the second quarter of 2027, according to the company's disclosures.

The service-revenue shift could strengthen a public-market pitch built on steadier income. The caveat: EBITDA remains two-thirds below year-earlier levels, and the recovery rests partly on acquisitions whose individual contributions remain undisclosed. Investors will likely scrutinize whether service margins hold once staking deductions and integration costs are fully visible — before any listing window opens in 2027.