Payward, the parent organization of digital asset platform Kraken, announced that its preferred revenue metric dropped 12% during the third quarter compared to the same period last year, impacted by lower trading fee generation amid quiet market conditions.
Total platform margin declined to $487 million for the period, according to a blog post published by the Wyoming-domiciled firm. This particular figure takes the place of adjusted revenue by subtracting client staking payouts and execution costs.
The enterprise is not alone in navigating reduced trading volumes across the industry. Coinbase Global experienced a 35% year-over-year drop in Q3 revenue, while Gemini Space Station disclosed a 19% revenue decrease alongside a 73% contraction in trading volume. These metrics highlight the mounting pressure on trading platforms to build income streams outside of transaction fees as market momentum slows.
Payward has actively pursued a broader financial services model encompassing trading, banking, wealth management, and Payward Services, which supplies backend financial infrastructure to external companies. This diversification helped push income derived from user assets, product access, data, and services up to 52% of overall revenues, rising from 46% during the prior year.
Along with trading, banking, asset management, and infrastructure offerings, Payward incorporated artificial intelligence as its fifth strategic pillar, revealing intentions to launch a personal finance assistant and investment vehicles built upon its xStocks tokenized equities network.
This initiative expands its presence into traditional futures, stocks, payment processing, safekeeping, and lending services, further insulating its income streams from crypto transaction fees.
Its asset management initiatives target digital currencies, structured yields, and tokenized financial products. In November, a fund linked to Payward alongside its customers acquired an undisclosed volume of AAVE tokens via secondary markets as the organization and decentralized finance platform Aave investigated avenues for deeper partnership.
Payward has additionally sought out collaborations with prominent traditional banking institutions.
The firm has engaged in discussions with Wells Fargo regarding the provision of crypto trading liquidity, and separately evaluated an infrastructure collaboration with BNY covering digital assets, asset custody, wealth management, trading execution, and payments, as reported previously by CoinDesk based on sources familiar with the matter.
At the same time, indicators point toward an ongoing recovery in trading activity. Total platform margin advanced 12% relative to the second quarter, the enterprise reported. Adjusted earnings, while remaining significantly lower than figures from the previous year, also climbed over the quarter as trading participation increased alongside growth in revenue generated from client assets and service access.
Originally published at https://www.coindesk.com/business/2026/11/13/kraken-parent-payward-says-expansion-outside-crypto-trading-helps-cushion-revenue-decline.
