Kraken co-CEO Arjun Sethi confirmed the exchange's confidential SEC filing at the Semafor World Economy summit, while a concurrent Deutsche Börse investment valued the company at $13.3 billion — a $6.7 billion markdown from its November 2025 fundraise.
Kraken has filed confidentially for a US initial public offering, co-CEO Arjun Sethi confirmed at the Semafor World Economy summit in Washington on Monday — a disclosure that arrived in the same week the exchange is dealing with an extortion demand tied to compromised employee accounts.
The filing, a draft registration statement on Form S-1 submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission, had been rumoured since November 2025 when Kraken raised $800 million at a $20 billion valuation. But the numbers have moved against the company since then. Deutsche Börse, the operator of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, disclosed a concurrent $200 million investment acquiring a 1.5 per cent fully diluted stake in Payward Inc — the corporate entity behind Kraken — at an implied valuation of $13.3 billion. That is a markdown of more than $6.7 billion in five months, a correction that reflects both the broader crypto market drawdown and investor scepticism about exchange revenues in a low-volume environment.
Barclays downgraded Coinbase to underweight this month, citing trading volumes at their lowest level since late 2023. Kraken isn't immune to the same dynamics. The exchange reported strong user growth in 2025, but revenue is heavily tied to spot and derivatives trading fees — exactly the income stream that dries up when markets go quiet. The decision to press ahead with an IPO filing during a period of compressed volumes is either a bet that the market will recover before the roadshow begins, or an acknowledgement that waiting for perfect conditions is a luxury the company can't afford.
Sethi offered no timeline, no share count and no price range at the Semafor event. That's standard for a confidential filing — the public S-1, with all its financial disclosures, won't appear until closer to the offering date. But the Deutsche Börse investment provides a useful data point for anyone trying to gauge what the market thinks Kraken is actually worth right now. A 1.5 per cent stake at $200 million implies the German exchange is paying a premium for strategic access rather than pure financial return; Deutsche Börse has been expanding its digital asset capabilities and a direct equity link to one of the oldest crypto exchanges gives it a foothold in a market it has so far approached cautiously.
Kraken's regulatory position has improved considerably over the past eighteen months. The exchange settled with the SEC for $30 million over its staking programme in 2023, obtained a Federal Reserve master account through its Wyoming banking charter, and was the first digital asset company to gain direct access to Fed payment rails. That regulatory foundation makes the IPO story more credible than it would have been two years ago, when Kraken was best known for telling the New York Attorney General's office to pound sand.
The timing, though, is awkward. Filing confidentially during a week when your company is publicly fighting an extortion attempt linked to rogue customer support employees is not the kind of narrative an investment bank would script. Kraken has said the breach affected roughly 2,000 accounts — 0.02 per cent of its user base — and has refused to pay the attackers. That's the right call, and it mirrors the playbook Coinbase adopted with its own OCC charter push toward institutional credibility. But it means the S-1, when it eventually becomes public, will need to disclose the incident and its costs.
If Kraken does list in 2026, it would join Coinbase as only the second major crypto exchange trading on a US public market. The $13.3 billion valuation puts it at roughly a quarter of Coinbase's current market capitalisation — a discount that some investors may view as an opportunity, and others as an accurate reflection of relative scale. Kraken processed roughly $207 billion in trading volume in 2025 compared to Coinbase's $830 billion, but its derivatives business and international footprint give it growth angles that Coinbase, hemmed in by US regulation, can't easily replicate.
Deutsche Börse's investment is expected to close in Q2 2026, pending regulatory approval.
