Kraken Parent’s Profit Rebound Still Leaves a Wide Gap Before Its IPO

Kraken’s parent company Payward said clients kept adding assets for 12 straight months, even as those holdings lost dollar value.

Its adjusted earnings rose to $60 million in the third quarter, up from $23 million in the second, but the figure remains 67% below a year earlier, Bloomberg reported, citing a shareholder letter.

Payward published its third-quarter figures on November 13, showing average assets on platform fell 21% from a year earlier to $43 billion.

At constant asset prices, client assets rose 29% year over year to $71 billion, highlighting the impact of lower prices on the dollar value of holdings.

Funded accounts grew 37% to 7.1 million over the same period, providing a larger base for Payward’s income.

New Scorecard and Trading Share

Payward’s earnings release also changed how it keeps score, with Total Platform Margin (TPM) now replacing adjusted revenue as its main measure.

TPM reached $487 million, up 12% from the second quarter but down 12% year over year, while margin from assets clients hold rose 26% quarter over quarter to $128 million.

Payward also took a bigger slice of spot trading, with its share of industry spot volume rising to 6.5% in September from 3.3% a year earlier.

Total platform volume rose 22% from the second quarter, while industry spot volume fell 7% over the same period, per CoinMarketCap data.

Path to IPO Remains Uncertain

These figures arrive with no date set for Payward’s listing, as it filed confidentially for a US IPO in November 2025 and reportedly paused the process in March.

BeInCrypto reported in September that the Kraken IPO now targets the second quarter of 2027 at the earliest, with Nasdaq agreeing in September to a $100 million Payward investment at a $21 billion valuation.

Payward’s third-quarter release does not mention the listing, and the fourth-quarter numbers will show whether the profit rebound can carry into 2027.