Kraken expands derivatives business in the US
Crypto exchange Kraken will acquire Small Exchange, a CFTC‑regulated Designated Contract Market (DCM). The $100 million deal with IG Group positions Kraken to offer a full suite of listed derivatives onshore for U.S. clients.
Kraken sees the purchase as a step toward a single high‑performance trading stack. Spot, futures and margin services will operate under one regulatory umbrella. A DCM licence allows the venue to design and list exchange‑traded derivatives in the United States under direct CFTC oversight, with strong requirements around transparency, market integrity and risk management.
Co‑CEO Arjun Sethi says integrating clearing, risk controls, and matching into one system will reduce liquidity fragmentation and improve collateral mobility across venues. He calls it long-term market infrastructure building, not a marketing play, aimed at scale and greater institutional participation as the asset class matures.
The deal extends Kraken’s derivatives expansion. In 2019 it acquired Crypto Facilities, an FCA‑supervised MTF (Multilateral Trading Facility) in Europe, expanding regulated futures in the UK and EU. In 2025, Kraken bolstered its U.S. presence by purchasing retail futures platform NinjaTrader.
Kraken says it now operates regulated derivatives venues across the UK, EU and U.S., supporting six fiat currencies and hundreds of digital and traditional assets in one unified architecture. For European firms active on both sides of the Atlantic, the U.S. expansion may offer better cross‑venue liquidity and a more coherent compliance path into listed crypto and traditional‑asset derivatives.
Kraken expects the Small Exchange acquisition to accelerate the creation of a deep, liquid and standards‑aligned infrastructure for U.S. traders and institutions, with positive spill‑over effects for international participants seeking regulated access and operational resilience.
Recommended