Kraken's parent company Payward lays off 150 employees to streamline its structure! Simultaneously seeking new financing at a "$20 billion valuation" to prepare for IPO

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In order to make a grand stock market debut, US crypto exchange giant Kraken is fully pursuing a dual-track approach of "slimming down and expanding"! According to foreign media reports, Kraken's parent company Payward recently laid off 150 employees to streamline its operational structure, while simultaneously seeking a new round of funding at a sky-high valuation of up to $20 billion. Although the IPO was previously postponed due to market headwinds, Kraken has recently spent over $2.6 billion acquiring companies such as NinjaTrader and Reap, demonstrating strong expansion ambitions, with top executives boldly declaring that IPO preparations are already at "80%." (Background: Kraken splashes $600 million to acquire Hong Kong payment startup Reap! Aggressively expanding the "stablecoin payments" landscape in Asia) (Context: ZachXBT exposes Kraken's due diligence failure: allowing Memecore to manipulate coin prices, artificially pushing $M's market cap up to $18 billion) Kraken, one of the longest-standing crypto exchanges in the United States, is intensively conducting final structural adjustments on its path to ringing the bell for its IPO. According to foreign media citing two informed sources, Kraken's parent company Payward, in order to optimize its corporate structure before its planned Initial Public Offering (IPO), has recently carried out layoffs affecting approximately 150 people. It is understood that Kraken currently has approximately 3,000 employees globally, and this round of layoffs accounts for about 5% of its total workforce. In response, a Kraken spokesperson provided a standard corporate PR response via email: "We do not comment on specific personnel or operational decisions. As a high-performance culture, we continuously evaluate and evolve our organization to ensure we have the right structure and talent to optimize growth and serve our customers." Seeking a $20 billion valuation, splashing huge sums to expand the landscape In addition to "cutting costs" through layoffs to beautify financial statements, Payward's ambitions in the capital markets are equally not to be underestimated. Informed sources revealed that Payward is currently actively raising a new round of funding at a valuation of up to $20 billion ahead of going public. This massive new capital will serve as a powerful backing for the company's recent extremely aggressive "Acquisition strategy." In order to rapidly scale up and complete its ecosystem before going public, Payward recently launched a frenzied shopping mode, including: - Spending $600 million to acquire stablecoin payment company Reap. - Spending $550 million to acquire digital asset derivatives platform Bitnomial. - The largest transaction occurred in 2025, splashing $1.5 billion to buy NinjaTrader, a US-headquartered retail futures platform registered with the CFTC, demonstrating its determination to enter traditional finance and the compliant derivatives market. IPO progress reaches "80%," awaiting favorable market winds Looking back at Payward's IPO journey, the company secretly submitted a draft S-1 registration statement to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on November 19 last year, taking the first step toward a potential public listing. However, this March, market reports indicated that due to weak cryptocurrency market conditions and macroeconomic headwinds, Kraken temporarily shelved its IPO plans (industry rivals such as Ledger also adopted a similar wait-and-see attitude). However, sources emphasized that the company's determination to push for a listing has never wavered, and the process will be immediately restarted once market conditions become more favorable. At the recent Consensus conference in Miami, Payward and Kraken Co-CEO Arjun Sethi personally delivered reassurance to the outside world, confidently stating that the exchange is "already 80% ready" for its formal public listing. With the business landscape being filled in and the organizational structure streamlined, the countdown for Kraken's landing on US stocks appears to have already begun.

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