Kraken, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, announced a record $1.5 billion in revenue in 2024, increased by 128% year-over-year. The exchange also said it would delist Tether (USDT) and four other stablecoins in Europe due to new regulatory pressures under the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework that will come into force in 2025. It plans to complete the delisting between Feb. 13 and March 31, 2025.
Kraken’s Financial Performance in 2024
Kraken also reported adjusted EBITDA of $380 million in 2024. The exchange retained $42.8 billion in assets on its platform and maintained 2.5 million in funded accounts. Total trading volume came to $665 billion, which suggests the company is one of the substantial participants in the global cryptocurrency market. The platform had 99.9% uptime and a round-trip latency of less than 2 milliseconds, and has done over 2.5 billion trades since inception.
Kraken doubled down on its commitment to accountability to customers, shareholders, and employees as a central pillar of how it conducts its business. It said, “While others chased short-term wins, we built our platform differently – steadily and methodically.”
European Stablecoin Delistings
Starting on February 13, 2025, Kraken will delist USDT, PayPal USD (PYUSD), Euro Tether (EURT), TrueUSD (TUSD), and TerraUSD (UST) for users in the European Economic Area in its latest attempt to make its operations MiCA compliant by trying to make noose tighten around stablecoin issuers and exchanges.
Delisting will occur in three phases. First, margin trading of the identified stablecoins would be moved to “reduce-only” mode, opening a new margin trade position for an account is closed; spot and futures trading for all relevant products is unchanged.
Effective from February 27, the platforms put in a “sell-only” restriction; spot trading gets closed as a further measure from March 17; lastly, on March 24, the margin will forcefully settle accounts on outstanding amounts in such account’s available trading.
Any remaining holdings in those stablecoins will automatically be converted into compliant assets after March 31. This comes as other exchanges, like Coinbase and Crypto.com, have already taken the same measures ahead of increasing regulatory scrutiny in Europe.
Regulatory Landscape and Market Impact
MiCA is the framework aimed at bringing clarity to regulatory cryptocurrency operations in Europe. As it was reconfiguring its services to comply with such regulations, Kraken urged users to convert affected holdings before the deadlines. Despite the regulatory challenges in Europe, Tether remains quite strong globally and reports a record $13 billion in net profit in 2024.
El Salvador, on the other hand, welcomed the expansion by Tether, which placed its headquarters within its borders. This also goes to prove that Tether still holds its power in the cryptosphere while giving space to others in Europe.
This will certainly provide robust financial growth, coupled with proactive regulatory compliance, to position Kraken well for future success in this ever-evolving cryptocurrency landscape. Exchanges like Kraken have matured within the industry and now meet the demands of both markets and regulatory expectations.
