Kraken has purchased the token management platform Magna, the crypto exchange announced on Wednesday. Kraken declined to disclose the terms of the acquisition, which closed on Friday. It’s the exchange’s sixth deal over the past year, including its $1.5 billion purchase of the U.S. futures platform NinjaTrader in March.
Magna helps crypto companies manage the distribution of their cryptocurrencies. When crypto startups raise money from venture capitalists, they often promise investors a tranche of tokens, much like traditional startups give VCs equity. As the list of recipients grows, it grows more complicated to keep track of who owns what, especially once the tokens are trading live. That’s why companies turn to Magna, Arjun Sethi, co-CEO of Kraken, told Fortune.
“This would just add to being able to reach out and start supporting [token] issuers early on in their life cycle, rather than later at the time they’re thinking about liquidity within their token,” he said in an interview, about why his exchange pursued Magna.
Growing product list
Kraken’s latest deal comes as the company continues to build out its product suite before it goes public. The exchange would join a growing crop of crypto firms like BitGo, Gemini, Circle, and Bullish, all of which launched IPOs in 2025.
In November Kraken filed confidentially for an IPO, and in February it released some of its 2025 financials, in much the same way public companies report their annual returns.
Sethi, however, declined to offer a specific timeline for when his company plans to hit the market. Firms that are in the process of going public are typically subject to a regulatory “quiet period” that limits what their executives can state publicly.
Kraken’s acquisition of Magna also comes as crypto exchanges more broadly look to expand their product offerings beyond the trading of cryptocurrencies to a larger suite of financial assets, like derivatives and stocks. Coinbase, one of Kraken’s biggest competitors, has announced its intention to become an “everything exchange” and recently let its users trade on prediction markets in partnership with the startup Kalshi.
In fact, in July Coinbase bought Liquifi, a token management platform of its own. Sethi said Kraken didn’t bid for Liquifi. “You see these headlines of other companies doing something here and there, and I think for us it’s again market structure, life cycle, that’s the most important,” he added.
A graduate of the 2022 winter cohort from accelerator Y Combinator, Magna was last valued at $70 million in its most recent funding round, according to data from PitchBook. It joins other companies Kraken recently acquired, which, beyond NinjaTrader, include tokenized stock provider Backed and derivatives infrastructure company Small Exchange.
