Coinbase rang its bell in 2021. Gemini rang its in 2025. Kraken has been talking about ringing its since 2022.
It has not rung yet.
What Arjun Sethi has done in the years of waiting is considerably more interesting. This week, Kraken's co-chief executive agreed to personally acquire Summit National Bank a federally chartered community institution in Wyoming for $5.5 million. The bank's parent company is in bankruptcy. Two previous buyers failed to close. Sethi stepped in. Not through Kraken. Not through Payward. Personally.
The bank is modest. It serves rural towns across Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana. Nobody wanted it. At $5.5 million, it is not a trophy. It is a federally regulated banking licence the thing the entire crypto industry has been circling for years and almost nobody has actually managed to acquire.
That is the point.
Sethi has spent 2026 collecting pieces of regulated financial infrastructure that most crypto executives only describe in pitch decks. In March, Kraken became the first crypto exchange to secure a Federal Reserve master account. It announced a Nasdaq partnership to offer tokenised stocks. In May, Payward filed with the OCC for a national trust company charter. And now, personally, a bank.
Meanwhile the IPO waits as it has since Jesse Powell first mentioned it in 2021. Kraken confidentially filed its S-1 in November 2025, off an $800 million raise that valued the company at $20 billion. By March 2026 those plans were paused. Bitcoin had sold off, volumes softened, and the valuation quietly retreated to $13.3 billion.
In April Sethi confirmed the filing remained active without offering a date. In May he said Kraken was about 80% ready to go public. The timeline has since slipped toward 2027. Eighty percent ready, indefinitely.
Then there is the World Cup. Yesterday, two days before the opening match, Kraken was named the Official Crypto Exchange Supporter of the FIFA World Cup 2026 the first major crypto sponsorship in the tournament's 96-year history. Six billion people are projected to watch across seven weeks. Fan activations, product experiences, and crypto education roll out tonight across multiple cities. It extends a sports portfolio that already includes Tottenham Hotspur, Atlético de Madrid, RB Leipzig, and the Williams Racing F1 team.
"Football has always crossed borders," Sethi said. "So does crypto. For most of history, the best markets were open only to the few."
It is a good line. Sethi is good at lines. What he is better at, it turns out, is building. The Fed account exists. The Nasdaq deal exists. The OCC filing exists. The World Cup sponsorship begins tonight. The Wyoming bank is pending a court ruling.
The IPO, however, remains a conversation about the future as it has been for five years. Coinbase trades on Nasdaq. Gemini has its listing. Kraken has a confidential S-1, a valuation down a third from its peak, and a co-CEO who, while waiting for the market window to open, went out and bought a bank, signed FIFA, and told the world the listing is coming.
When conditions are right.
They always are, eventually.
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