Payward Revenue Grew 17% in Q2 as Trading Volume Fell 13%

Payward, Inc., the parent company of Kraken, reported second-quarter adjusted revenue of $508 million, up 17% year over year, even as total platform transaction volume fell 13% to $310 billion.

Crypto spot trading volume fell 27.9% industry-wide in the second quarter, Finance Magnates reported, as eToro, Robinhood and Coinbase all posted declining crypto revenue.

Against that backdrop, Payward gained spot market share for a third straight quarter, while its futures, equities and tokenised equities activity increased.

Growth is Shifting Toward Assets Held on the Platform

Funded accounts rose 42% year over year to 6.6 million, with particular momentum in the EEA following Payward's MiCA authorisation. Measured at constant asset prices, client balances grew 48% year over year to $65 billion.

That growth in accounts and balances lines up with a shift in Payward's revenue mix. Asset-based and other revenue, tied to client balances rather than individual trades, rose to 60% of total revenue from 55% a year earlier.

Payward's banking pillar is a part of that category: the company launched Flexline, a crypto-backed credit line, for US clients in June, and expanded its virtual IBAN product to 11 additional European markets during the quarter.

Two Acquisitions Built the Regulated Infrastructure behind the Shift

Payward built that stack through two acquisitions this year. The Bitnomial deal, which closed May 1, gave the company a CFTC-regulated US derivatives stack spanning an FCM, DCM and DCO.

Built on that stack, Kraken launched the first CFTC-regulated spot margin offering for US retail clients and the first CFTC-regulated perpetual futures available to US traders during the quarter; futures DARTs (daily average revenue trades) rose 8% year over year over the same period.

Reap, a stablecoin-native payments and card-issuing platform, closed on July 1, adding payments infrastructure to Payward's banking and services operations.

Later that month, Payward agreed to acquire the wallet infrastructure business of Magic Labs, which will add embedded wallets to Payward Services once the deal closes.

Kraken remains Payward's primary consumer brand, but it shares its core systems with NinjaTrader and xStocks — one matching engine, one risk engine, one settlement core, in the company's own description. That backbone now extends to outside partners through the Payward Services API.

Payward's application for an OCC national trust company charter, filed in May, remains pending. Its outcome will determine whether the same systems can operate under a federally chartered trust structure alongside the state and offshore licences Payward already holds.