Payward, the parent company of the crypto exchange Kraken, reported its third-quarter 2026 results on Friday 13 November with a new headline metric and a smaller profit. Adjusted EBITDA came to $60 million, up from $23 million in the second quarter but down about 66% from the $178.6 million of the third quarter of 2025, according to the company’s release and figures reported by The Block. The release gives no net income and no revenue figure under US accounting rules (GAAP).
The top line changed too. Payward no longer reports “adjusted revenue”. It now publishes a measure it calls total platform margin, or TPM, which came to $487 million, up 12% on the quarter and down 12% on the year. TPM subtracts more costs than the old metric did, so the Kraken Q3 results cannot be laid side by side with the revenue numbers the company gave in earlier quarters.
What did grow is the customer base. Funded accounts reached 7.1 million, 37% more than a year earlier, and Payward says its share of global spot trading volume doubled to 6.5% in September, while its own trading volume fell 30% from the third quarter of 2025.
Kraken Q3 2026 results: the figures Payward published
The release lists percentages and a few dollar amounts but no financial statements. The table below gathers what it gives, with the comparisons Payward chose. Figures for the third quarter of 2025 are only shown where the company or a named outlet published them.
| Metric (Q3 2026) | Value | vs Q2 2026 | vs Q3 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total platform margin (TPM) | $487M | +12% (Q2 restated at $436M) | -12% |
| Transaction-based margin | $234M | +7% | not given |
| Asset-based margin | $128M | +26% | not given |
| Access-based margin | $125M | +7% | +59% |
| Adjusted EBITDA | $60M | $23M | $178.6M (The Block) |
| Adjusted EBITDA margin (share of TPM) | 12% | 5% | not given |
| Total platform transaction volume | $353B | +22% | -30% |
| Contracts traded | 66M | +10% | +84% |
| Average assets on platform | $43B | +4% | -21% |
| Billable accounts | 1.5M | +9% | +74% |
| Funded accounts | 7.1M | +7% | +37% |
Two of these measures are new. “Contracts traded” counts derivatives contracts on which Payward charges a fee per contract rather than a fee set by notional value. “Billable accounts” is a broad count that includes brokerage accounts, paying subscribers, index licensing clients and users of products the company no longer offers, according to the release’s footnotes.
A new metric, a smaller number
Total platform margin is Payward’s own non-GAAP measure. According to the release, it equals total revenue minus trading costs, trading gains or losses, and the staking rewards Payward passes on to clients. The old adjusted revenue already removed trading costs. It did not remove staking rewards. Payward says the switch treats everything handed back to clients the same way, and it names gross profit as the closest GAAP measure.
The effect is visible on the second quarter. In August, Payward reported adjusted revenue of $508 million for the April to June period, The Block reported at the time. In Friday’s release, the same quarter appears as $436 million of TPM. The $72 million gap is the cost the new measure deducts and the old one did not, chiefly staking rewards on our reading of Payward’s definitions. So the 12% quarterly rise compares two quarters on the new basis. Payward did not print the old metric for the third quarter, so no one outside the company can say what it would have shown.
The yearly comparison works the same way. Bloomberg reported adjusted revenue of $648 million for the third quarter of 2025, a figure cited by The Cryptonomist at the time. Payward did not publish a restated TPM for that quarter. A 12% fall to $487 million implies about $553 million, which is our arithmetic, not a company figure. Set against the old $648 million, the $487 million is 25% lower, but that mixes two different measures; on the new basis the fall is 12%. The release says adjusted revenue is “included for comparison purposes only” and no longer used by management, without printing it for the latest quarter.
Adjusted EBITDA, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation with further company adjustments, is less affected by the change, because staking rewards were already a cost below the revenue line. That is why the $60 million, set against $178.6 million a year earlier, is the clearest view of how much less the business earned. Payward starts its EBITDA calculation from net income, the release says, but does not print the net income it starts from.
Volume fell 30%, yet Kraken doubled its share of spot trading
Total platform transaction volume was $353 billion in the quarter. That is 22% more than in the second quarter, when Payward reported $310 billion, and 30% less than a year earlier. The yearly fall is steeper than the 13% drop the company disclosed for the second quarter, and Payward does not explain the gap.
Payward points to a different number. Industry spot volume fell 7% from the second quarter, according to CoinMarketCap data quoted in the release, while Payward’s volume rose. Its share of global spot volume was 6.5% in September 2026, against 3.3% in September 2025. The market shrank and Kraken took a bigger slice of it.
Some of that growth came from derivatives and new trading products. Contracts traded rose 84% in a year, to 66 million. In late October Kraken began moving 176 spot pairs to synthetic markets, with taker fees even on limit orders, one of several changes to how the exchange books trades. The release does not break volume down by product, so the share of spot, futures and tokenised stocks in the $353 billion is unknown.
Fees from access and assets now make up 52% of the margin
Payward splits TPM into three blocks. Transaction-based margin, mostly trading fees, was $234 million and still the largest part. Asset-based margin, earned on balances clients keep with Payward, rose 26% on the quarter to $128 million. Access-based margin, which the company links to subscriptions, services and access to its platforms, was $125 million, up 59% on the year.
Taken together, asset- and access-based margin made up 52% of TPM, against 50% in the second quarter and 46% a year earlier. That trend matters for a trading company. Fees from trading swing with prices and volatility; income from balances, services and subscriptions tends to move more slowly. Payward’s pitch to investors rests on that shift, though the release does not list which products sit in each block.
Assets on the platform averaged $43 billion, 4% more than in the second quarter but 21% less than a year earlier, mostly because crypto prices are lower. Payward also gives a figure “at constant prices” of $71 billion, up 29% on the year. That is the company’s own measure, valuing holdings at earlier prices to strip out the market’s fall, and the release does not say which reference date it uses.
Coinbase and Gemini shrank too, by different amounts
Kraken is not the only exchange reporting a weaker year. Coinbase’s third-quarter revenue fell 35% on the year, CoinDesk noted on Friday, and its $719 million Q3 profit was mostly a mark on its own crypto holdings, with $78 million left without it. Gemini’s third-quarter revenue fell 19% and its trading volume 73%, according to the same CoinDesk report, and our piece on Gemini’s third-quarter loss and volumes has the detail.
Against that, Payward’s 12% fall in TPM and 30% fall in volume look moderate, and the doubling of its spot market share is the strongest line in the release. The comparison has limits. Coinbase and Gemini are listed companies that publish full GAAP accounts every quarter. Payward is private and chooses what it discloses, which is why its results cannot be checked against a profit and loss statement.
What Payward says comes next: prediction markets, an AI agent, xStocks
Most of the release is a plan. Payward lists projects under five pillars: trading, banking, asset management, Payward Services and, new this quarter, artificial intelligence. None of the projects below has a launch date, except the first AI tool.
- In trading, prediction markets for US clients, equity funding payment between longs and shorts, settled every few hours, keeps the contract price close to the spot or index price.">perpetual futures run on Payward’s own exchange and clearinghouse, apps for local markets, and a single account with one margin blockchain that runs exactly as written when it is called, holding and moving funds according to its code, without an intermediary able to change the outcome.">smart contract holding reserves of two or more tokens, supplied by users, that a decentralized exchange uses to execute trades automatically at a price set by a formula.">pool and one risk engine.
- In banking, US dollar wires moved onto Payward’s own Fed master account so that they settle at the Federal Reserve, and a US credit card that Payward says it will put into testing.
- In asset management, xPO, a primary offering in which a private company would issue its shares as xStocks and raise capital, with a secondary market from day one, subject to regulatory approval; and funds built on xStocks.
- Through Payward Services, derivatives clearing and brokerage for other firms, embedded wallets, and xStocks sold under partner brands.
The AI plan has the most detail. Payward describes a personal finance agent and a control layer through which clients would direct an agent across their Payward holdings. The first such layer is expected early next year. Clients approve the trades, and the release says every action an agent proposes “goes through our risk engine, which decides in code”. It adds that a Kraken app for ChatGPT is in review. “We are the rails, and the client brings the brain,” Payward wrote, without naming who said it.
xStocks, Payward’s tokenised stocks, are already live. On Wednesday Kraken added about 200 European and UK stocks to xStocks, as tokens that carry no vote and no claim on the underlying share. The release also mentions an IPO Access offering for the sandwich chain Jersey Mike’s, in which Kraken clients could pre-order shares at the offering price, as US equity or as xStocks for clients elsewhere. The Block reported that xStocks passed $1 billion in assets under management in October.
On derivatives for other firms, Payward’s US entities already reach outside Kraken: in October the decentralised exchange Hyperliquid named Payward its first CFTC-regulated deployer for HIP-3 markets, though those US markets were not yet approved.
Europe: a bank to buy and deposits on the balance sheet
For European clients, the plans go further than for US ones. Payward agreed in October to acquire Saldo Bank, which it describes as an EU-licensed digital bank; the deal still needs regulatory approval, and the release does not say where the bank is licensed. Once it closes, Payward expects to offer interest-bearing deposits and lending. “In Europe we plan to hold client deposits on our own balance sheet and fund our own lending from them,” the release says.
That would turn part of Kraken’s European business into banking, with the capital and supervision rules that come with it. Payward also says it provides custody and infrastructure for WOO X EU, a trading venue it calls MiCA-aligned, and that Reap, the card company it has owned since July, is expanding its stablecoin card programmes with Visa to more than 100 markets, including Europe, the Middle East and Africa. For how EU crypto licensing works, see our explainer on the MiCA regulation.
Still no IPO date and no profit figure
Payward filed a confidential draft registration for a US listing on 19 November 2025, then paused its preparations in March 2026. In September, Finance Magnates, citing a CoinDesk report based on two people familiar with the matter, wrote that Payward did not plan to list before the second quarter of 2027, described as the earliest possible window rather than a commitment. Kraken declined to comment at the time. Co-CEO Arjun Sethi said in April that the confidential filing remained active.
The valuation has moved down along the way. Before its filing Payward raised $800 million, including $200 million from Citadel Securities at a $20 billion valuation; a later $200 million investment by Deutsche Boerse valued it at $13.3 billion, a third less, Finance Magnates reported. The Q3 release says nothing about a listing. Our reading: a third quarter with EBITDA down two thirds on the year, and a new revenue metric investors will have to learn, does not make a 2027 timetable easier.
Two partnerships reported in recent weeks are also absent from the release. CoinDesk reported in late September and early October, citing people familiar with the discussions, that Payward had talked with Wells Fargo about supplying liquidity for crypto trading and, separately, with BNY about a partnership spanning custody, wealth management, trading and payments. Neither bank nor Payward has confirmed a deal, and the talks were not mentioned on Friday.
What is not in the release, and what to watch
Several numbers a reader of a listed company would expect are missing: net income, GAAP revenue, cash on hand, and a restated TPM for the third quarter of 2025. The release mentions no earnings call, and no executive commented on the figures in the release. The company also does not say how much of its margin comes from staking, now that staking rewards are deducted at the top.
For Kraken users, the practical items are the dated ones. The first AI agent layer is due early in 2027, the Saldo Bank purchase waits on a regulator, and prediction markets for US clients have no date. If you use Kraken or are comparing platforms, our Kraken review covers its fees, licences and products.
The market backdrop was weak on Friday. Bitcoin traded near $68,640 and ether near $1,931 at 17:33 UTC on Friday, with total crypto market capitalisation at about $2.34 trillion, down 5.8% in 24 hours, according to Coindaro’s market snapshot.