Payward, the private parent of crypto exchange Kraken, made less than half of its third-quarter margin from trading fees, and it changed the headline number it reports to investors in the same release. Adjusted EBITDA came in at $60 million, up from $23 million in the second quarter but down 67% from $181 million a year earlier, according to Payward’s Q3 2026 financial highlights, published on Friday.
A new scorecard
Payward used to lead with adjusted revenue. It now leads with what it calls total platform margin, or TPM, which also subtracts the staking rewards it pays out to clients. The company said the change means “everything we pass on to clients is treated the same way.” Adjusted revenue is still shown “for comparison purposes only,” and a footnote says management no longer uses it.
The switch makes the top line smaller. TPM was $487 million in the third quarter, against $553 million on the old adjusted revenue basis. That gap of about $66 million is roughly what the company passed to clients as staking rewards in the quarter, by our calculation from the release’s own table. A year earlier the difference was about $96 million, with TPM at $554 million and adjusted revenue at $650 million. On either measure, the business shrank from a year ago: TPM fell 12% and adjusted revenue 15%.
Both are non-GAAP measures. Payward is not listed and does not publish full financial statements, so the release is the main window into its numbers.
Trading is now the smaller half
Payward split TPM into three buckets for the first time. Transaction-based margin, earned when clients trade, was $234 million. Asset-based margin, earned on balances clients keep on the platform, was $128 million. Access-based margin, which covers subscriptions, trader evaluations, listings, data and index licenses, was $125 million.
That puts trading at about 48% of the total. Asset- and access-based margin made up 52%, up from 50% in the second quarter and 46% a year earlier. Access-based margin grew 59% from the third quarter of 2025 and is now about a quarter of the total, helped by Breakout, the trader evaluation firm Payward bought in 2025. Billable accounts, the clients who pay for that kind of access, rose 74% to 1.5 million.
The shift partly reflects how much trading activity fell. Total platform transaction volume was $353 billion, down 30% from $503 billion a year earlier, though up 22% from the second quarter. Payward said it grew while industry spot volume fell 7% from the second quarter, and that its share of industry spot volume rose to 6.5% in September from 3.3% a year earlier, citing CoinMarketCap data. In other words, Kraken took a bigger slice of a smaller market.
Derivatives helped. Contracts traded on which Payward charges a flat per-contract fee rose 84% from a year earlier to 66 million.
Clients hold more, but it is worth less
Assets on platform averaged $43 billion, down 21% from $55 billion a year earlier. Held at constant prices, the same measure rose 29% to $71 billion. Payward said clients added assets in each of the last 12 months, but falling prices more than wiped out those additions in dollar terms. Funded accounts rose 37% to 7.1 million.
Profitability has not kept pace with that growth. Adjusted EBITDA was 12% of TPM in the third quarter, up from 5% in the second. A year earlier, $181 million of EBITDA on $554 million of TPM worked out to a margin of about 33%.
What Payward says comes next
Payward made AI a fifth pillar of the business and said every one of its apps will get an “agent harness,” with the first expected early next year. It also plans to launch a personal finance agent, which it said it is designing to act only inside limits the client sets and to need client approval before a trade runs.
On the trading side, it listed prediction markets for U.S. clients and equity perpetual futures run through its own exchange, clearinghouse and futures broker. That puts Kraken into a product area where several U.S. states are now fighting federal regulators in court. In banking, Payward said it wants to move U.S. dollar wires onto its own Federal Reserve master account and put a U.S. credit card into testing. Kraken also plans to launch in the UAE after full market approval from Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority, the release said.
Tokenized stocks remain a growth line. Payward said xStocks passed $1 billion in assets under management in October and now offers more than 700 tokenized equities, after the company added hundreds of UK and EU stocks this month. Its latest proof of reserves, as of Sept. 30, showed a 103.2% reserve ratio for bitcoin and 100.7% for ether.
The figures also matter for a possible listing. Payward confidentially filed for a U.S. IPO in November 2025 but has since paused those plans, Cointelegraph reported. A business earning more than half its margin from balances and paid access is an easier pitch in a weak trading market, though the 67% drop in EBITDA shows how far it has to go.
FAQ
How much did Kraken’s parent Payward earn in Q3 2026?
Payward reported adjusted EBITDA of $60 million, up from $23 million in the second quarter and down 67% from $181 million a year earlier. Total platform margin was $487 million.
What is total platform margin?
It is Payward’s new headline measure. It equals total revenue minus trading costs, trading gains or losses and staking rewards paid to clients. It replaces adjusted revenue, which did not deduct staking rewards.
Is Kraken launching prediction markets in the U.S.?
Payward listed prediction markets for U.S. clients among its next trading launches but did not give a date.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.
