Payward, the parent company of Kraken, increased its share of global crypto spot trading to 6.5% in September, up from 3.3% a year earlier, according to the company’s latest quarterly results. The gain came even as weaker trading activity continued to pressure earnings.

Adjusted EBITDA fell 66% from a year earlier to $60 million. In the third quarter, Payward processed $353 billion in transactions, down 30% year over year, indicating that its market-share increase reflected a larger slice of industry activity rather than overall growth in trading on its own platforms.

Trading share rises while volumes decline

The company said the jump in spot market share showed it captured more trading activity relative to competitors, not that crypto trading broadly accelerated across its business. Payward’s quarterly transaction volume covers several product categories, including spot, margin, equities, payments and certain derivatives.

Adjusted EBITDA dropped from $178.6 million a year earlier to $60 million. Total platform margin, a measure Payward introduced this quarter in place of adjusted revenue, fell 12% year over year to $487 million. The new metric includes a deduction for staking rewards paid to customers.

Expansion beyond the core exchange business

Over the past two years, Payward has been building businesses outside its main crypto exchange operations in an effort to reduce reliance on transaction fees, which tend to move with market conditions. Its acquisition strategy has included derivatives, proprietary trading, tokenized assets and payments.

The company bought futures broker NinjaTrader and proprietary trading firm Breakout in 2025. In May 2026, it acquired the US-regulated derivatives platform Bitnomial, and in July it added stablecoin payments company Reap. Payward said these moves helped produce a broader mix of trading and service-based activity in the third quarter.

Service revenue areas show stronger growth

Some of the newer and less trading-sensitive business lines expanded faster than the company’s overall results. The number of derivatives contracts on which Payward charges a per-contract fee increased 84% to 66 million during the quarter.

Margin from subscriptions, trader evaluations and other paid services rose 59% to $125 million. Breakout, which charges traders for evaluations that can lead to funded trading accounts, was included for the full quarter after joining the group in September 2025. Reap’s stablecoin payments and card-issuing business was also part of the quarter, though Payward did not disclose the individual contribution from either acquisition.

Quarterly improvement from Q2, but still below last year

Compared with the second quarter, Payward’s results improved. Total transaction volume rose 22%, and total platform margin increased 12% from $436 million to $487 million.

That sequential improvement was not driven only by trading. Margin earned from customer assets held on Payward platforms, including staking-related services, climbed 26% to $128 million. The company said that increase accounted for roughly half of the $51 million quarterly rise in total platform margin.

Adjusted EBITDA also recovered from $23 million in the second quarter to $60 million, and its margin relative to total platform margin improved to 12% from 5%. Even so, profitability remained well below year-earlier levels.

What the results show next

The quarter suggests Payward is becoming less dependent on spot trading fees even as overall market activity remains softer than a year ago. Asset- and access-based services made up 52% of total platform margin, up from 46% a year earlier.

That shift provides the clearest confirmed direction from the results: Payward is relying more heavily on subscriptions, asset-linked income and acquired businesses to offset weaker trading conditions, while continuing to hold a larger share of the spot market than it did a year earlier.

Source: cointelegraph.com