Payward Lays Off 150 Employees to Streamline Operations for Kraken IPO

On May 15, according to CoinDesk, Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, has laid off approximately 150 employees as part of a pre-IPO business optimization plan. Kraken currently has about 3,000 employees. The report states that Payward is seeking a new round of financing at a valuation of around $20 billion and is accelerating its M&A expansion. The company has previously acquired stablecoin payment company Reap, derivatives platform Bitnomial, and will acquire US futures platform NinjaTrader for $1.5 billion in 2025. Payward secretly filed its IPO application with the SEC in November 2025 and plans to restart the IPO process when market conditions improve.