Kraken rolls out regulated crypto derivatives feature

Crypto exchange Kraken has officially launched Kraken Derivatives US, a regulated platform offering US clients access to crypto futures trading. This marks a major step forward in Kraken’s effort to provide a fully integrated trading experience.

Through this rollout, clients can trade cryptocurrency futures directly on CME Group’s platform via Kraken Pro. Users will enjoy seamless collateral transfers, enhanced capital efficiency, and a simplified interface that combines spot and derivatives trading in one place.

That means Kraken’s clients can now trade numerous crypto futures—such as Bitcoin and Ethereum contracts—besides traditional spot markets in the Kraken Pro interface, which is the exchange’s advanced trading feature. Combining both offers instantaneous collateral transfers and enables strategies to be carried out faster.

“With this launch, Kraken clients in the US can now trade futures alongside one of the world’s most liquid cryptocurrency spot markets,” said Shannon Kurtas, Head of Exchange at Kraken.

He noted that it’s important to provide traders with broad market access and increased capital efficiency within a regulated, high-performance environment.

In making crypto futures available in a compliant and regulated environment, Kraken caters to the increasing institutional and retail demand for advanced trading instruments in the US. That’s important as US regulators grow more adamant about regulating the cryptocurrency market, putting added focus on regulatory clarity and investor protection.

Kraken develops a unified digital and traditional trading solution

The introduction of Kraken Derivatives US isn’t a once-in-a-while maneuver. It is part of Kraken’s larger plan to develop a holistic multi-asset platform where users can easily trade digital and traditional assets in a single place.

In April 2025, Kraken launched its traditional finance offering, commission-free trading in US equities. Kraken has said it makes more than 11,000 US stocks and ETFs accessible, and that all trades are open 24 hours a day. This was a major step toward breaking the barrier between crypto and traditional investing.

The company also recently introduced tokenized equities, through which customers can purchase fractionalized publicly traded stock shares on a blockchain. That means Kraken users can now manage a diverse investment playbook that features crypto coins and blue chips without leaving the platform.

Kurtas said Kraken Derivatives US is constantly working to build and expand a holistic trading experience that enables seamless trading across digital and traditional assets, all on one platform without compromise in functionality, performance, or liquidity. She said the company is building an ecosystem to serve traders in DeFi, traditional finance, and the spectrum.

We aim to create a trading system where capital can quickly and efficiently move across markets with high confidence using just one high-performance interface.

Kraken expands after acquiring NinjaTrader

This new ability for Kraken was largely facilitated by the acquisition of NinjaTrader, one of the US’s most storied retail futures trading platforms. This acquisition was strategically important for Kraken, as it added regulatory infrastructure, technology, and mastery to its business to move into older derivatives markets.

The debut of Kraken Derivatives US is the largest product to come out of that acquisition. But it’s only the beginning.

Kraken, one of the oldest crypto exchanges, said it would extend its derivatives offering later in the year to include more futures, such as commodities, foreign exchange (FX), stocks, and bonds. That development would put Kraken in direct competition with established institutions rather than those in the crypto market, offering traders a single place for managing risk and trading across all major asset classes.

The move is especially critical when institutional interest in crypto and digital assets is increasing, and hedge funds, family offices, and asset managers seek ways to enter digital markets compliantly.

By providing futures contracts, spot trading, tokenized and traditional equities under one roof, Kraken says it aims to be a power player in global finance, not just crypto.

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