Kraken's Parent Payward Builds Financial Infrastructure Empire

Payward, the parent company of Kraken, is on a mission to become a unified financial platform. Over the past two years, it has spent billions acquiring and building pieces that expand its reach into futures and derivatives, tokenized stocks, and banking capabilities in the U.S. and Europe.

The goal is to create 'one ledger,' allowing money and assets to move between products without intermediaries.

This approach differs from Coinbase's 'Everything Exchange' model, which concentrates all products inside a single platform. Payward, instead, is building infrastructure that can support multiple brands and be used by outside financial companies.

Its asset-management platform will accommodate additional managers, strategies, and asset classes, reducing costs and counterparty exposure.