Is Kraken a subsidiary of another company?

No. Kraken is the operating brand of Payward, Inc., an independent privately held company. Payward is the parent entity and Kraken is its flagship brand; there is no larger corporate owner.

Jesse Powell founded Kraken in 2011 after consulting on the Mt. Gox hack, building the exchange around security. He served as CEO until 2022 and remains on the board. The company is now led by co-CEOs Dave Ripley and Arjun Sethi.

What is Kraken's market position?

Kraken is one of the world's largest and oldest cryptocurrency exchanges and the second-largest in the United States behind Coinbase. Its global spot market share reached 6.5 percent in late 2026, and it is valued at approximately $20 billion in private markets.

Finance & Fintech

Who Owns Kraken?

Q: Is Kraken publicly traded?

Not yet. Payward confidentially filed a draft S-1 registration statement with the SEC on November 19, 2025, the first step toward a potential U.S. IPO. As of November 2026 the company remained private.

Q: When was Kraken founded?

Jesse Powell founded Kraken in 2011 in San Francisco. The exchange launched trading in September 2013, making it one of the oldest operating crypto exchanges.

Q: Where is Kraken headquartered?

Kraken's global headquarters is in Cheyenne, Wyoming, a move completed in June 2025. The company previously operated from San Francisco and maintains a remote-first workforce in more than 70 countries.

Kraken is the operating brand of Payward, Inc., a privately held cryptocurrency exchange headquartered in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Founded in 2011 by Jesse Powell, Kraken is one of the world's largest crypto exchanges, serving 5.7 million funded accounts with $48.2 billion in platform assets and $2.2 billion in 2025 revenue. It confidentially filed for a U.S. IPO in November 2025.

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Parent Company

Payward, Inc. (Kraken)

Founded

2011

Status

Private

Headquarters

Cheyenne, Wyoming, USA

mass marketGlobalOfficial Website

Who Owns Kraken?

Parent Company: Payward, Inc. (Kraken)
Ownership Type: Brand division
Company Type: Privately Held

Brand	Parent Company	Ownership Type
Kraken	Payward, Inc. (Kraken)	Brand division

History of Kraken

Founded: 2011
Founders: Jesse Powell

Jesse Powell founded Kraken in 2011 in San Francisco, motivated by the security failures that destroyed Mt. Gox, then the dominant bitcoin exchange. Powell had consulted on the Mt. Gox hack and built Kraken explicitly around security and regulatory credibility. The exchange launched trading in September 2013, initially offering bitcoin, litecoin, and euro pairs.

Kraken grew into one of the earliest established crypto exchanges in the United States, distinguishing itself on security and regulatory compliance. It survived the 2014 Mt. Gox collapse that eliminated its largest competitor, expanded into margin trading and futures, and built one of the industry's first regulated banking relationships in Europe.

The company operated from San Francisco until 2022, when Powell closed the headquarters and went remote-first after citing employee safety incidents. Powell stepped down as CEO that year amid a New York Times report on his workplace culture comments, moving to chairman. In June 2025, Kraken formally relocated its global headquarters to Cheyenne, Wyoming, citing the state's pro-crypto legal framework, including more than 30 digital asset statutes.

The defining recent phase is a pre-IPO expansion through acquisition. In 2025 Payward acquired retail futures platform NinjaTrader for $1.5 billion, prop trading firm Breakout, the Small Exchange, and trading software maker Capitalise.ai. In 2026 it added tokenized asset platform Backed, derivatives venue Bitnomial for $550 million, and stablecoin payments company Reap for $600 million. Payward confidentially filed a draft S-1 for a U.S. IPO on November 19, 2025.

About Payward, Inc. (Kraken)

What does Payward own?

Payward, Inc. owns and operates the Kraken cryptocurrency exchange and its related products including Kraken Pro, Kraken Institutional, Kraken+, and Kraken Financial, all under the Kraken brand.

Is Kraken publicly traded?

No. Payward, Inc. is privately held. The company has reportedly explored an IPO but had not completed one as of November 2026.

Who founded Kraken?

Jesse Powell, Thanh Luu, and Michael Gronager founded the company in 2011, launching the exchange in 2013. Powell built it after consulting for Mt. Gox and remains chairman and its largest shareholder.

Where is Kraken headquartered?

Kraken's parent Payward, Inc. is headquartered in Cheyenne, Wyoming, having relocated from San Francisco in 2022. It operates a distributed workforce and maintains offices globally.

Is Kraken the same as Payward?

Payward, Inc. is the legal corporate name; Kraken is the trade name and brand of its exchange and products. The two names refer to the same company.