Kraken Pursues Advanced Traders With Breakout Acquisition

Kraken has acquired trading firm Breakout to expand its product suite for advanced traders.

“Breakout gives us a way to allocate capital based on proof of skill rather than access to capital itself,” Arjun Sethi, co-CEO of Kraken said in a Thursday (Sept. 4) news release announcing the deal. “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. That is deeply embedded in Kraken’s cultural DNA.”

Breakout allows qualified traders to access up to $200,000 in notional capital. To qualify, traders need to pass what Kraken calls a “rigorous” evaluation and maintain performance above predefined drawdown limits. Successful traders receive a funded account and are eligible to retain up to 90% of any profits they generate, paid on-demand.

“Breakout’s evaluation-first model is designed to verify risk discipline, strategy consistency, and real market decision making under pressure,” Sethi added. “This is not simulation for simulation’s sake. It is a filter for scalable signal.”

The deal, the company said, helps “the world’s most capable traders to allocate at size” into cryptocurrency markets, while Breakout gets the benefit of Kraken’s global infrastructure and trusted brand. Breakout will eventually be integrated directly into the Kraken Pro platform, the release added.

“Breakout gives traders a performance-based starting point,” said Alex Miningham, co-founder and CEO of Breakout. “Kraken delivers the scale and tools to grow. Together, both companies form a unified ecosystem that supports the full trader journey from education through independent capital deployment.”

Also this week, Kraken announced it had teamed with Backed to expand the two companies’ tokenized equities project, xStocks, to the ethereum blockchain.

The project is designed to offer new opportunities to integrate tokenized stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) “across the world’s most widely adopted smart contract network,” Kraken said on its blog.

Meanwhile, PYMNTS spoke earlier this year with Brett McLain, head of payments and blockchain at Kraken, about his company’s crypto-as-a-service (CaaS) partnership with equities broker Alpaca. He argued that the collaboration is not just an example of the company extending its reach, but rather a reshaping of the rails of modern finance.

“If a major traditional bank integrates this CaaS platform into its retail services, it could mark a tipping point where digital assets become as accessible and as commonplace as stocks or bonds,” PYMNTS wrote.