Kraken

Jesse Powell opened Kraken in San Francisco in 2011. One of the older fiat exchanges.

Jesse Powell opened Kraken in San Francisco in 2011. The company behind it is Payward. It was the first crypto firm to take a bank charter. In 2025 it opened tokenized stocks to customers outside the United States, and in most US states the app also trades stocks, futures, and ETFs. Powell stepped down as chief executive in 2022. In February 2023 Kraken paid $30 million to settle the SEC’s case over its staking programme in the United States.