Payward invests billions to transform into unified financial infrastructure

Payward, the company behind Kraken, is no longer content being known as a crypto exchange. Through a string of billion-dollar acquisitions and heavyweight partnerships with traditional finance institutions, the firm is rebuilding itself as something closer to financial plumbing, the kind of infrastructure that sits beneath both crypto and equity markets. Payward’s 2025 adjusted revenue hit $2.2B, a 33% jump year-over-year. More than half of that revenue, 53%, now comes from asset-based services rather than simple trading fees. The acquisition blitz The most eye-catching deal was its $1.5B acquisition of NinjaTrader, a move that gave the company serious derivatives infrastructure and a foothold in futures trading that extends well beyond crypto. Then came the purchase of Reap Technologies, a Hong Kong-based stablecoin payments company, for up to $600M. Following that, Payward acquired Bitnomial for up to $550M, adding regulated derivatives exchange capabilities to its growing toolkit. NinjaTrader brings retail and institutional derivatives. Reap brings cross-border stablecoin payment rails. Bitnomial brings regulated crypto derivatives. Together, they form the skeleton of a platform...