Kraken at $1.2B
Jan-Erik Asplund
TL;DR: Sacra projects that Kraken is on track to hit revenue of $1.2B for 2024, up 42%. As the clear #2 trusted crypto exchange behind Coinbase, Kraken is indexed on the upside of Bitcoin's transaction volume re-accelerating. For more, check out our full report and dataset on Kraken.
Key points via Sacra AI:
- Kraken (2011) launched its crypto exchange in 2013, finding product-market fit as the only place to buy and sell Bitcoin with euros—revenue grew from about $160M in 2017 to $2B in 2021 as total Bitcoin trading volume rose from $53B to $625B. Kraken’s business model is highly coupled with transaction volume—about 90% of revenue comes from fees assessed on each trade, which range from .06% of transaction volume for high-volume traders to .25% for consumer trades to 1.5% for altcoins and other crypto assets
- After crypto peaked in November 2021, exchanges saw sharp multi-year declines in revenue, with trading volume plummeting—after peaking at $2B, Kraken’s revenue fell to $954M in 2022 and $863M in 2023. Compare to Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN) which peaked at $7.8B in 2021, then fell to $3.15B in 2022 and flattened out to $3.1B in 2023.
- Sacra projects that Kraken is on track to generate $1.2B in revenue in 2024, up 42%, as transaction volume re-accelerates to $343B (up 55%)—as the only major US exchange to never be hacked, Kraken is the clear #2 trusted exchange behind Coinbase. As a safe, "boring", US-based exchange, Kraken is counter-positioned against Binance's jurisdiction-hopping and use of exchange tokens and against FTX's borrowing against customer funds.
For more, check out this other research from our platform:
- Kraken (dataset)
- Chainalysis
- David Ripley, COO of Kraken, on the future of cryptocurrency exchanges
- Auston Bunsen, Co-Founder of QuickNode, on the infrastructure of multi-chain
- Q&A with Raihan Anwar and Colby Holliday from Friends with Benefits
- Farooq Malik and Charles Naut, co-founders of Rain, on stablecoin-backed credit cards
