Kraken Acquires Breakout Expanding Capital Access For Advanced Crypto Traders

Kraken, a leading U.S. crypto exchange, has acquired Breakout, a proprietary trading platform that provides advanced traders access to up to $200,000 in capital after passing rigorous evaluations. This acquisition enables Kraken to reward traders based on demonstrated skill rather than capital access, allowing qualified traders to keep up to 90% of profits and trade over 50 crypto pairs with leverage options. The move aligns with Kraken’s broader expansion efforts in trading infrastructure, following its $1.5 billion acquisition of futures trading platform NinjaTrader, and aims to integrate Breakout into its Kraken Pro platform. Proprietary trading, once restricted for U.S. banks, has grown in crypto with firms like Breakout offering evaluation-based retail prop trading, combining compliance and global exchange scale through Kraken’s ecosystem. The acquisition comes amid a crypto-friendly regulatory environment under the Trump administration, supporting Kraken's plans for future public offering and product suite diversification including automation features and broader regulatory licenses. Kraken's strategy reflects a wider industry trend as crypto exchanges expand beyond spot trading into derivatives, brokerage, and proprietary trading services to capture both retail and institutional market flows.