Payward pushes back Kraken IPO to second quarter of 2027

One more year of waiting, the same promise going backwards. After preparing the ground from the beginning of 2025, Payward, the parent company of Kraken, has just postponed its long-awaited IPO to the second quarter of 2027 at the earliest, according to two sources close to the matter cited by CoinDesk. A new slide in a calendar that never stops stretching.

One more postponement in an already long wait

Payward filed a confidential registration file with the SEC, the American stock market regulator, in November 2025, shortly after raising $800 million from investors at a valuation of $20 billion, including $200 million contributed by Citadel Securities. The dream of listing then seemed within reach.

Then, in March, CoinDesk revealed that the company had put its project on pause, citing market conditions that were too difficult for crypto prices, volumes and valuations. At the time, sources close to the matter assured that Kraken remained interested in a listing, but not at any price.

Six months later, nothing has really changed. A Kraken spokesperson declined to comment on the new deadline. The Wyoming-based company, however, continues to display solid financial health, with adjusted revenue of $508 million in the second quarter, up 17% year-on-year, 6.6 million funded accounts and $40 billion in assets on the platform.

Kraken is not alone in delaying her plans

The crypto IPO market has cooled significantly after the euphoria at the start of the year, when the successful debuts of Circle and Bullish foreshadowed a wave of listings. Weaker crypto prices, sluggish volumes and disappointing performance of some newly introduced stocks have dampened investors' appetite. As a result, several heavyweights in the sector have taken the same path as Kraken: the asset manager Grayscale, the Ethereum software publisher Consensys, and Ledger, which was also considering suspending its listing on the New York Stock Exchange.

Far from putting itself on pause, the company has instead accelerated its purchases. Acquisition of the derivatives platform Bitnomial for $550 million in May, acquisition of the stablecoin payments specialist Reap for $600 million in July, and announced takeover of Magic Labs' electronic wallet business. So many operations which are gradually transforming Kraken, a simple exchange in its beginnings, into a complete financial services platform, between trading, payments and derivative products.

Postponing an IPO is therefore not an admission of weakness at Payward, rather the sign of a company that prefers to grow before showing itself to investors. Still, patience has its limits, and Wall Street does not wait forever for one file to be perfect before moving on to the next.