Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, posted $508 million in second-quarter revenue. That’s a 17% jump year-over-year, and it arrived alongside a metric that matters even more for the company’s long-term story: funded accounts climbed 42% to 6.6 million.
The kicker is that total transaction volume actually dropped 13% over the same period. Revenue up, users up, trading down.
More users, fewer trades, more money
The divergence between rising revenue and falling volume is the most telling detail in Payward’s Q2 results. In Payward’s case, the structural change appears to be diversification. The company has been expanding beyond spot trading into futures, asset-based services, and other financial products. Its acquisition of NinjaTrader, a futures trading platform, is one of the more visible bets in that direction.
The 42% increase in funded accounts to 6.6 million suggests the company is pulling in new users even during what the industry typically considers a slow season. Q2 has historically been a period of softer trading volumes across crypto markets, making the revenue growth all the more notable.
