Kraken

One of the marquee early names in the crypto industry, Kraken was founded in 2011 by Jesse Powell, Thanh Luu, and Michael Gronager. Besides crypto trading services, the exchange is also one of the few to hold a banking charter. In 2020, Wyoming regulators granted Kraken Financial a special-purpose depository institution charter. 

Kraken's parent company, Payward Services, is also making an aggressive push into traditional finance. That includes a $1.5 billion acquisition of the CFTC-regulated futures trading platform NinjaTrader in 2025. The company has also been an early leader in the fast-emerging field of tokenized equities, using its xStocks platform to sell shares of U.S. firms in markets like South Africa and Brazil. The exchange recorded average daily trading volumes of over $2 billion in the first quarter of 2026.