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U.S. crypto exchange Kraken has acquired proprietary trading platform Breakout, the company announced Thursday, as it continues its efforts to expand services ahead of a planned public offering.
San Francisco, California-based Kraken said it bought Breakout for advanced traders. The platform allows eligible users to access up to $200,000 in notional capital and retain up to 90% of profits. Top traders are rewarded for making large trades.
Kraken would not tell Decrypt the price of the transaction.
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"Breakout gives us a way to allocate capital based on proof of skill rather than access to capital itself," Kraken co-CEO Arjun Sethi said in a statement. "In a world that is rapidly shifting from who you know to what you know, we want to build systems that reward demonstrated performance, not pedigree."
Breakout offers traders 5 times leverage on BTC and ETH contracts. But traders have to pass an evaluation before receiving a notional capital allocation—and are subject to retests if they breach drawdown thresholds.
In a press release, Kraken said that it was "empowering" successful "traders to allocate at size into crypto markets," and reaffirmed its aim to provide "innovative, performance-based products." The company expects to integrate Breakout into its Kraken Pro platform.
The debut comes as Kraken offers new products, including stocks and exchange-traded fund trading in certain U.S. states. In March, Kraken also announced it was buying futures trading platform NinjaTrader for $1.5 billion.
The company intends to go public, a Kraken spokesperson confirmed to Decrypt earlier this year, possibly as early as early 2026, according to a Bloomberg report. The company would then become the second U.S.-based crypto exchange to trade publicly, following Coinbase, which listed on Nasdaq in April 2021.
Kraken's plans come amid a friendlier political and regulatory environment for digital assets ushered in by the administration of Donald Trump, who received massive donations from industry stalwarts during his 2024 run for president.
In late March, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission dismissed enforcement actions against Kraken and two other crypto firms filing joint stipulations to drop the cases with prejudice, making the decisions final and not subject to refile. The regulator has also ended cases against Coinbase, Robinhood, Uniswap Labs, and OpenSea, among others.
Sethi noted that the acquisition would enable Kraken to provide a service consistent with how "modern capital platforms should work."
"By integrating Breakout into Kraken, we are building an infrastructure layer where traders can earn their way into size, deploy capital with minimal friction, and get paid on merit," he said.
