Kraken parent Payward Q3 adjusted EBITDA drops 66% to $60m despite market share gains
The exchange operator handled $353 billion in transactions during the third quarter as fee-based services expanded to cushion lower spot trading activity.
Key takeaways
- 1Payward third-quarter adjusted EBITDA dropped 66% year-on-year to $60 million.
- 2Global spot trading market share rose to 6.5% in September, up from 3.3% a year earlier.
- 3Total transaction volume fell 30% year-on-year to $353 billion.
- 4Non-trading asset and access services generated 52% of total platform margin.
- 5Payward targets a US initial public offering window starting in Q2 2027.
Kraken parent company Payward reported a 66 percent year-on-year drop in third-quarter adjusted EBITDA to $60 million, down from $178.6 million in the prior-year period, as weaker cryptocurrency trading activity weighed on exchange earnings. Total quarterly transaction volume across all platform products fell 30 percent year-on-year to $353 billion.
Despite lower market activity, Payward captured a larger portion of spot trading relative to competitors, nearly doubling its share of global crypto spot trading to 6.5 percent in September from 3.3 percent a year earlier. Total platform margin fell 12 percent year-on-year to $487 million. Payward introduced total platform margin this quarter to replace adjusted revenue, deducting staking rewards paid out to platform customers.
Expanding beyond core exchange transaction fees helped soften the drop in earnings. Margin from subscriptions, trader evaluations and other paid services grew 59 percent year-on-year to $125 million during the quarter. Non-trading business lines, including asset- and access-based services, accounted for 52 percent of total platform margin, compared with 46 percent in the third quarter of the previous year.
Payward has pursued acquisitions over the past two years to broaden its revenue streams. The company acquired futures broker NinjaTrader and proprietary trading firm Breakout in 2025, followed by US-regulated derivatives platform Bitnomial in May 2026 and stablecoin payments and card issuer Reap in July 2026. The number of derivatives contracts charging per-contract fees reached 66 million, up 84 percent from a year earlier, while total funded accounts grew 37 percent.
Results showed a sequential recovery compared to the second quarter of the year. Total transaction volume grew 22 percent quarter-on-quarter, while total platform margin rose 12 percent from $436 million. Margin earned from customer assets, including staking-related services, increased 26 percent sequentially to $128 million, generating roughly half of the $51 million increase in platform margin between the second and third quarters.
Adjusted EBITDA rose to $60 million from $23 million in the second quarter, bringing the adjusted EBITDA margin relative to total platform margin to 12 percent, up from 5 percent. Payward confidentially filed for an initial public offering in the United States in November 2025 but paused the process in March 2026 as market conditions deteriorated. The company is evaluating a public listing target window beginning in the second quarter of 2027.
Reported and edited by the YourKhabri desk under our editorial policy. Nothing here is investment advice.