The company and the brand
Kraken is a brand, not a legal entity. The operating companies are Payward, Inc. and its affiliates, and the site says so twice over: the footer carries a Payward, Inc. copyright notice running from 2011, and the logo itself is drawn as "kraken by Payward". The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control describes Payward, Inc. as "a Delaware-incorporated virtual currency exchange with operations in the United States and elsewhere". Which Payward entity a customer faces depends on the product, and US regulators have brought actions against different ones.
What it does
A custodial spot exchange with a professional trading interface. Its own navigation also lists futures, margin, options, staking and tokenised stocks. As with any custodial venue, the exchange holds the keys while the coins are on it.
On the record
Three actions by US authorities, none of them adjudicated, and all of them settled or withdrawn.
In November 2022 OFAC announced a settlement with Payward, Inc. The company agreed to remit USD 362,158.70 to settle its potential civil liability for apparent violations of sanctions against Iran, and to spend a further USD 100,000 on sanctions compliance controls. OFAC said the cause was a failure to implement geolocation tools in time.
In February 2023 the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Payward Ventures, Inc. and Payward Trading Ltd. with failing to register the offer and sale of their staking service. The two entities agreed to stop offering it and to pay USD 30 million, and did so, in the SEC's words, "without admitting or denying the allegations in the SEC's complaint".
In November 2023 the SEC sued Payward Inc. and Payward Ventures Inc. in federal court in San Francisco over operating as an unregistered exchange, broker, dealer and clearing agency. On 27 March 2025 the Commission filed a joint stipulation to dismiss that case with prejudice, stating that the decision "rests on its judgment that the dismissal will facilitate the Commission's ongoing efforts to reform and renew its regulatory approach to the crypto industry, not on any assessment of the merits of the claims alleged".
Listing here is not endorsement.