Kraken's parent company invests billions of dollars to build financial infrastructure, aiming to create a unified financial platform

According to CoinDesk, Kraken's parent company Payward has invested billions of dollars over the past two years, expanding into futures and derivatives, tokenized stocks, and banking through acquisitions and self-built businesses, with the goal of integrating trading, payments, asset management, and institutional services into a unified financial infrastructure.

Payward Co-CEO Arjun Sethi stated that the company is not a holding company, but rather "a set of platforms, a balance sheet, a regulatory framework," with the core being to allow funds and assets to flow between different businesses through "a single ledger." Payward has currently enhanced the U.S. futures and derivatives infrastructure through acquisitions such as NinjaTrader and Bitnomial, and plans to acquire a bank in Europe; its B2B infrastructure division Payward Services currently has at least 25 companies using its API, including Hyperliquid. In the second quarter of 2026, Payward's adjusted revenue was $508 million, a year-on-year increase of 17%.