Kraken IPO: Delayed to Q2 2027 at the Earliest, With a Reported $21B Valuation

Kraken will not go public before the second quarter of 2027 at the earliest, CoinDesk reported on September 2, 2026, and its last reported valuation is $21 billion, attached to Nasdaq's agreed $100 million investment a week later.

Payward, the Wyoming-based parent of crypto exchange Kraken, "has delayed its widely anticipated initial public offering until next year," CoinDesk reported, citing two people familiar with the matter, one of whom put the earliest date at the second quarter of 2027. Kraken declined to comment. On September 10, 2026, Nasdaq announced it had agreed to invest $100 million in Payward through Nasdaq Ventures, which brings Payward's valuation to $21 billion according to people who spoke to Bloomberg, CoinDesk reported. No IPO date, exchange or ticker has been announced as of October 16, 2026.

Kraken IPO: When Is Kraken Going Public?

Kraken has not set an IPO date. Payward confidentially submitted a draft S-1 registration statement to the SEC in November 2025, and since then the plan has been paused once and pushed back twice. The latest report, from CoinDesk on September 2, 2026, puts the earliest listing in the second quarter of 2027. Until Payward files a public S-1, there are no offering terms to price.

Management sounds unhurried. Co-CEO Arjun Sethi said Payward is profitable and in no rush to pursue an IPO as it expands its platform, in a September 26, 2026 CoinDesk interview. The timeline so far:

Sources linked in the sections below. As of October 16, 2026. Payward has not filed a public S-1.

Why Was the Kraken IPO Delayed?

The first stop came in March 2026, when Payward put its IPO plans on hold until market conditions improve, according to a CoinDesk report that Sherwood News summarized on March 18, 2026. A month later, Sethi confirmed at the Semafor World Economy summit in Washington, D.C. that the confidential filing stood, Yahoo Finance reported on April 14, 2026.

By May the date had slipped again. Bloomberg reported that Kraken was eyeing a 2027 debut and had cut around 150 staff as it rolled out AI tools, Finance Magnates reported on May 18, 2026, while Sethi said the company was 80% ready to go public, per Blockhead. CoinDesk's September report tied the delay to a cooling market for crypto listings: weaker prices and volumes, poor aftermarket trading in some new digital-asset stocks, and postponements by Grayscale, Consensys and Ledger.

What Is Kraken's Valuation?

Kraken's valuation went from $20 billion in November 2025 down to an implied $13.3 billion in April 2026 and back up to a reported $21 billion in September 2026. The $20 billion mark came with an $800 million raise that included $200 million from Citadel Securities, per CoinDesk. In April, Deutsche Börse agreed to buy a 1.5% fully diluted stake in Payward through a $200 million secondary purchase of existing shares, implying $13.3 billion, Quartz reported, citing CoinDesk. The September Nasdaq deal carried a $21 billion valuation, according to people who spoke to Bloomberg, as Fortune and CoinDesk reported.

The April figure is implied by a secondary purchase of existing shares, not a new primary round, so it is not directly comparable with the other two.

How Much Revenue Does Kraken Make?

Payward reported $508 million of adjusted revenue for the second quarter of 2026, up 17% from $432 million a year earlier, according to crypto.news. Profit moved the other way: adjusted EBITDA fell to $23 million from $80 million, and total platform transaction volume declined 18% to $310 billion. Asset-based and other revenue made up 60% of the total, up from 55%, a sign that the business leans less on trading fees than it did. Payward did not disclose net income.

The company has been buying its way into adjacent businesses. Sethi told CoinDesk that Payward paid $1.5 billion for futures broker NinjaTrader and $550 million for Bitnomial, a regulated derivatives exchange and clearinghouse. He also said Kraken has about 6.6 million funded accounts holding $40 billion to $50 billion of assets across more than 190 countries and territories.

Kraken vs. Coinbase: How the Numbers Compare

Coinbase is the listed benchmark any Kraken IPO would be priced against. It reported $1.22 billion of revenue for the second quarter of 2026, down from $1.5 billion a year earlier, CoinDesk reported, and a $359 million net loss, according to Quartz.

Sources: crypto.news on Payward's Q2 2026 results; CoinDesk and Quartz on Coinbase's Q2 2026 results; CoinDesk (Sept 10 and Sept 26, 2026) on valuation, volume share and strategy. Payward's revenue is an adjusted figure and Coinbase's is reported revenue, so the two are not like-for-like.

Coinbase is about 2.4 times Payward's size by Q2 2026 revenue, but Payward grew while Coinbase shrank (Value Add VC arithmetic).

What the headline misses

A higher private valuation does not mean the IPO is closer. The $21 billion figure comes from a $100 million strategic check from an exchange operator that also gets distribution for its tokenized stocks on Kraken, per CoinDesk, so it says as much about Nasdaq's product plans as about what public investors would pay. Payward's adjusted EBITDA fell about 71% year over year in Q2 2026 (Value Add VC arithmetic on $23 million versus $80 million), and its revenue figure is adjusted, with net income not disclosed. A public S-1 would be the first full look at those numbers.

What to Watch Next (as of October 16, 2026)

• A public S-1. Payward's draft is still confidential. A public filing would put audited revenue and net income on the record and start the clock toward any listing; CoinDesk's sources point to Q2 2027 at the earliest.
• The Saldo Bank deal. Payward agreed on October 14, 2026 to buy Lithuania-based, EU-licensed Saldo Bank, with closing expected in 2027 pending regulatory approval and terms undisclosed, Fortune reported.
• A Wells Fargo liquidity deal. Payward is in talks to become a crypto liquidity provider to Wells Fargo, CoinDesk reported; the talks may not produce a deal.
• Third-quarter results. Payward has published quarterly figures; Q3 will show whether adjusted EBITDA recovers from $23 million.
• The crypto IPO window. Watch the other listings that stalled with Kraken, and the 2026 IPO pipeline, including Blockchain.com.

The Bottom Line

Kraken is filed but not scheduled: its parent targets the second quarter of 2027 at the earliest, per CoinDesk, with a reported $21 billion valuation in hand. The company is using the wait to buy a bank, add derivatives venues and sign partners such as Nasdaq. Whether that wins it a higher public valuation depends on the profit line a public S-1 will finally show.