Kraken co-CEO Arjun Sethi confirmed Tuesday that the crypto exchange has confidentially filed for an initial public offering, speaking at Semafor’s World Economy conference in Washington, D.C.

The news comes alongside a $200 million investment from Deutsche Börse, Germany’s largest stock exchange operator, in Kraken’s parent company, Payward, for a roughly 1.5% fully diluted stake. The deal implies a valuation of approximately $13.3 billion, a 33% haircut from the $20 billion Kraken commanded during its $800 million fundraise in November 2025.

Kraken originally filed its draft S-1 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in November 2025, one day after closing that funding round, which drew backing from Citadel Securities, Jane Street, and DRW Venture Capital. The exchange has not disclosed the size or pricing of its planned offering, saying it will finalize terms once regulators complete their review and market conditions settle.

Speaking at the conference, Sethi framed the IPO push as part of a broader mission to democratize sophisticated financial tools. “What they want at the end of the day is what Citadel and Jane Street have, or JPMorgan has, and they want it accessible to them,” he said. “That’s our mission: How do we make all these products open?”

The Deutsche Börse investment deepens a commercial partnership first announced in December 2025, centred on integrating Kraken’s xStocks tokenized equities platform into Deutsche Börse’s digital asset infrastructure.

Kraken has been aggressively expanding in recent months. The exchange launched CME futures trading in October 2025, giving users access to traditional commodities and equity index contracts alongside crypto. Its xStocks tokenized equities product surpassed $10 billion in cumulative trading volume in November, and in March, Nasdaq tapped Kraken as a settlement layer for its own tokenized stock initiative.

The regulatory backdrop has also shifted sharply in Kraken’s favor. The SEC dismissed its lawsuit against the exchange in March 2025 with no admission of wrongdoing, part of a broader pullback from crypto enforcement under the current administration.

Kraken is the second-largest U.S.-based centralized exchange behind Coinbase, which went public via direct listing in 2021.

This article was written with the assistance of AI workflows. All our stories are curated, edited and fact-checked by a human.