Kraken Parent Payward Reports $507 Million in First-Quarter Revenue as Futures Trading Grows

Payward, the parent company of cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, posted higher first-quarter revenue despite a broader market downturn, helped by growth in futures trading.

CoinDesk reported on May 18 that Payward's adjusted revenue for the first quarter was $507 million, up 3% from a year earlier.

The company said growth in derivatives and newer business lines helped offset weakness in spot trading.

Average daily revenue trades in futures rose 51% from a year earlier. Payward cited NinjaTrader, Breakout and the expansion of its derivatives services as the main drivers.

The market slump still weighed heavily on results. Bitcoin fell about 22% in the first quarter, while total cryptocurrency market capitalization dropped 23%. Industrywide spot trading volume also fell 38%.

Total trading volume on Payward's platform reached $357 billion.

Adjusted EBITDA fell to $18 million. Payward said the decline reflected continued investment in mergers and acquisitions, product development and regulatory infrastructure.

Kraken Co-Chief Executive Officer Arjun Sethi said, "While other companies pulled back, we invested instead."

Payward said it recently acquired tokenization platform Backed, token management firm Magna, derivatives exchange Bitnomial and payments company Reap to diversify its revenue streams.

As of March, funded accounts rose 47% from a year earlier to 6.1 million, while assets on the platform totaled $40 billion.

The company added that Kraken's share of the spot market increased from about 3.5% in the middle of last year to 5.2% in March.