Kraken co-CEO Arjun Sethi confirmed Tuesday that the cryptocurrency exchange has filed confidentially for an initial public offering with the SEC, making the disclosure at the Semafor World Economy summit in Washington, D.C. The filing was first submitted around November 2025, shortly after Kraken raised $800 million at a $20 billion valuation. The supporting evidence appears in the cited X post.
That valuation has since fallen sharply. An April 2026 funding round priced Kraken at $13.3 billion, a roughly 33% decline from its late-2025 peak, reflecting the turbulent market conditions that pushed the exchange to pause its public listing plans in March 2026.
Deutsche Börse Buys In as Kraken Bridges Traditional Finance and Crypto
The April round included a $200 million secondary share purchase by Deutsche Börse Group, the operator of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. That transaction gives Deutsche Börse approximately a 1.5% fully diluted stake in Kraken and is expected to close in Q2 2026.
The deal extends a strategic partnership the two firms announced in December 2025, targeting collaboration across trading, custody, and tokenized assets. It is one of the clearest signs yet of a major European exchange operator deepening its direct exposure to a crypto-native firm ahead of a potential public listing.
At the summit, Sethi outlined Kraken’s core ambition in plain terms. “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.
That’s our mission: How do we make all these products open?” Sethi said, as reported by Semafor.
NinjaTrader Deal and Fed Account Access Frame the Listing Push
Kraken has made several structural moves to back that positioning.
The exchange acquired futures and trading platform NinjaTrader for $1.5 billion and secured direct Federal Reserve master account access earlier in 2026, two steps that place it among the most regulated and institutionally connected crypto firms pursuing public markets this year.
Sethi’s comments at the Semafor summit suggest the confidential SEC filing remains live even as Kraken waits for a more favorable window to proceed. The exchange has not set a formal listing date, and any timeline will likely depend on how quickly broader market sentiment stabilizes.
Kraken’s IPO push comes as its largest U.S. competitor reaches its own milestone. Coinbase, which went public in April 2021, marked five years as a public company this week, noting its inclusion in the S&P 500 and its role as custodian for roughly 80% of U.S. bitcoin and ether ETFs. Coinbase’s listing trajectory was rocky enough that IPO investors did not see a profit until July 2025, a detail that underscores the patience Kraken may need once it does go public.
Not Financial Advice: This article is for informational purposes only. Crypto investments are highly volatile. Always do your own research.
