The move brings onchain yield and lending to the payments-focused chain in a bid to offer full-stack onchain finance platform to companies building on it.

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Key Highlights

• Payward achieves $507M in Q1 revenue while market speculation grows around Kraken’s IPO delay.

• Revenue climbs 3% year-over-year for Kraken’s parent despite challenging crypto market conditions.

• EBITDA margins compress at Payward as Kraken invests heavily in acquisitions and product development.

• Strategic expansion moves Kraken into equities trading, derivatives, payment solutions, and tokenized assets.

• Public listing timeline for Payward draws scrutiny as valuation estimates decline throughout 2026.

Payward disclosed adjusted revenue of $507 million for the first quarter of 2026, maintaining momentum despite significant cryptocurrency market headwinds. The parent organization of Kraken achieved 3% revenue expansion year-over-year while industry-wide trading participation declined substantially. These financial results emerged alongside speculation regarding a potential postponement of the company’s initial public offering until 2027.

Kraken Parent Maintains Revenue Growth Despite Industry Slowdown

The exchange platform processed $357 billion in aggregate transaction volume throughout the three-month period. Cryptocurrency trading momentum decelerated as macroeconomic headwinds and international tensions dampened market sentiment. Bitcoin’s value declined 22%, while the overall digital asset market capitalization contracted 23% during this timeframe.

Despite challenging market conditions, Kraken captured increased market share in spot trading activities. The platform’s portion of spot volume expanded from approximately 3.5% in mid-2025 to reach 5.2% by March 2026. Additionally, Payward maintained 59% of its spot trading volume measured from the December 2024 high-water mark, demonstrating superior resilience compared to major competitors.

Adjusted EBITDA declined to $18 million from $168 million recorded in the prior-year quarter. Payward attributed this reduction to ongoing investments across product development, strategic acquisitions, regulatory compliance initiatives, and customer base expansion. While maintaining profitability, the organization prioritized long-term growth initiatives over immediate margin optimization.

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Strategic Acquisitions Drive Platform Diversification Beyond Digital Assets

Through targeted acquisitions, Payward constructed a comprehensive multi-asset infrastructure platform. The Backed acquisition enables tokenized equity offerings, while Magna delivers token lifecycle management capabilities for issuers and blockchain protocols. Bitnomial enhances US-based derivatives operations, and the anticipated Reap closing adds payment processing and card infrastructure functionality.

Consumer product offerings expanded significantly during the opening quarter. The platform introduced US stock and ETF trading through Kraken Desktop while launching traditional finance futures for European Union customers. Additional rollouts included dual investment products, enhanced margin trading pairs, DeFi Earn capabilities, and Kraken CLI for command-line execution.

These product initiatives demonstrate Payward’s strategic pivot beyond cryptocurrency spot trading. NinjaTrader integration, Breakout features, and broadened futures access contributed to a 51% year-over-year increase in average daily futures revenue trades. Consequently, Payward diversified revenue generation away from direct cryptocurrency price correlation.

Public Offering Timeline Uncertainty Grows Amid Valuation Fluctuations

Following a November funding round at a $20 billion valuation, Payward submitted confidential IPO registration documents. Subsequent market reports indicated a reduced implied valuation after Deutsche Börse’s $200 million strategic investment. That transaction reportedly established Kraken’s fully diluted valuation near $13.3 billion.

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The public listing schedule now faces intensified market examination following reports suggesting potential postponement into 2027. This timeline adjustment follows cryptocurrency price declines, diminished trading volumes, and downward pressure on exchange sector valuations. Payward reportedly reduced headcount by 150 positions last week as part of operational cost optimization efforts.

Since its 2011 inception, Kraken has established itself among the cryptocurrency industry’s most enduring exchange platforms. Its parent organization now positions itself as a diversified infrastructure provider spanning digital assets, equities, derivatives, payments, and tokenization services. The first-quarter financial disclosure reveals an organization sustaining revenue growth while navigating preparation for public market transparency requirements.

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XRP holders have been staring at the same $1.20 to $1.60 range and price prediction for months, Sam Altman’s ChatGPT AI quietly ran the numbers and landed on a predicts that makes that range look like a launchpad.

$4 to $8 by end-2026, with a speculative cycle high potentially pushing toward $10.

ChatGPT’s framework is built around a single core thesis: real-world utility finally meeting institutional capital at the same moment.

Regulatory clarity is no longer a future event; it is the present reality, and the AI argues that the market has not yet fully repriced what that means.

Spot ETF inflows are expanding the institutional demand channel in real time. XRP is securing meaningful traction in cross-border payments, tokenization infrastructure, and liquidity corridors simultaneously, which means the utility argument is no longer concentrated in 1 use case that can be disrupted.

The combination of all 3 moving together is what ChatGPT calls the core driver, and it frames the 2x to 4x upside as credible rather than speculative, given where Ripple’s enterprise pipeline sits today.

Xrp (XRP)

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The bear case is honest and specific. If adoption growth stalls, institutional demand disappoints, or macro and supply pressures weigh on performance, ChatGPT sees XRP trading closer to $1 to $2.50, acting more as a steady infrastructure play than a major outperformer.

That is not a collapse scenario; it is a slow bleed scenario, which, for long-term holders, is arguably the more frustrating outcome.

The AI is clear that XRP remains one of the strongest large-cap altcoins in the market, but execution has to align with expectations for the upper targets to materialize.

XRP Price Prediction: Just Needs to Clear $1.60 and the Sequence of ChatGPT AI Predicts Begins

XRP price is trading at $1.3825 on the daily, and the chart has laid out exactly what the bull case looks like at each step.

4 levels are marked in sequence: support at $1.20, resistance at $1.60, then targets at $2.40, $3.10, and $3.64. Each one is a gate. None of them opens until the previous one closes behind it.

The immediate problem is that price has pulled back from the recent $1.50 push and is now sitting at $1.38, closer to support than resistance.

That gives the setup a different feel than it had 2 weeks ago. The $1.20 support zone marked in red is not far below current price, and with RSI cooling off, the next few daily closes matter more than usual.

Resistance remains $1.60, the level that has defined the ceiling of this entire recovery phase since February. Nothing above it is relevant until it breaks.

Above $1.60 the path the chart projects is a move to $2.40, consolidation, then continuation toward $3.10 and $3.64, which sits right inside ChatGPT’s $4 to $8 range as the first meaningful milestone.

ChatGPT’s $4 to $8 call needs the chart to hold $1.20 first. Right now, that floor is closer than the ceiling.

Discover: The best crypto to diversify your portfolio with

ChatGPT Says That Bitcoin Hyper Could Outperform XRP Next

Large-cap upside is getting harder to find. Bitcoin recovering to previous highs from here is a single-digit percentage move. That math pushes risk-tolerant capital toward earlier positioning.

Bitcoin Hyper is built for exactly that rotation. The project is building a Bitcoin Layer 2 using the Solana Virtual Machine, enabling developers to access smart contract functionality and near-zero fees without leaving Bitcoin’s security model behind. The gap it is targeting is real and has been sitting open for years. No other major blockchain has solved native high-speed programmability on top of Bitcoin.

The presale is at $0.013679 with over $32 million raised and staking incentives available for early participants.

The risk profile deserves honesty. Execution is unproven. Post-launch liquidity is unknown. Adoption does not follow automatically from good infrastructure. Every early-stage play comes with those question marks and this one is no different.

What is different is the entry point. The upside that institutional capital cannot access at Bitcoin’s current market cap is still fully available here. That is the tradeoff. Higher potential, higher risk, and a window that closes once the market catches up.

Research Bitcoin Hyper here.

The post Sam Altman ChatGPT AI Predicts Shock XRP Price By End of 2026 appeared first on Cryptonews.

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XRP gave back gains after a high-volume selloff erased the latest breakout attempt, though buyers stepped back in near support around $1.38.

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Co-CEO Arjun Sethi said the firm kept investing through market weakness, leaning on acquisitions and futures growth to offset softer spot trading.

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The Ethereum co-founder argued that AI-assisted “formal verification” could become one of the most important tools for cybersecurity in a new blog post.

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Goldman Sachs fully exited its XRP and Solana (SOL) spot ETF positions during the first quarter of 2026, ending a brief altcoin push that began just months earlier.

The bank’s latest 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) also shows Ethereum (ETH) ETF exposure trimmed by about 70% and Bitcoin (BTC) ETF stakes preserved near $700 million for the period ending March 31.

Goldman Sachs Makes A Strategic Altcoin Retreat

The disclosure marks a sharp reversal from late 2025, when Goldman first appeared as one of the largest institutional holders of spot XRP and Solana ETF products.

Earlier filings showed nearly $154 million spread across Bitwise, Franklin Templeton, Grayscale, and 21Shares XRP funds, plus a smaller Solana position concentrated in Bitwise’s staking ETF and Grayscale’s Solana Trust.

Both positions now sit at zero. Remaining iShares Ethereum Trust (ETHA) holdings stand near $114 million, well below the prior quarter.

The bank kept roughly $690 million in BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) and about $25 million in Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC), though both were trimmed by close to 10%.

Beyond ETFs, the firm increased exposure to crypto-linked equities including Circle, Galaxy Digital, and Coinbase. It also pared positions in mining and treasury names such as MicroStrategy, IREN, Bit Digital, and Riot Platforms.

The shift suggests Goldman is replacing direct token bets with infrastructure plays tied to stablecoin issuance, prime brokerage, and exchange flows.

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A Broader Institutional Pattern

Goldman is not the only major allocator rotating out of crypto funds.

Harvard University’s endowment cut its IBIT stake by roughly 43% to about $117 million. It also fully closed an $86.8 million Ethereum ETF position it had added only the prior quarter.

Trading firm Jane Street slashed its IBIT holdings by about 71% and FBTC by roughly 60%, then rotated into Ether ETFs.

Emory University exited its small IBIT position entirely, swapping into the Grayscale Bitcoin Mini Trust.

However, not every institution pulled back. Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala increased its IBIT holdings by about 16% to roughly $566 million, while Dartmouth’s endowment opened a small Bitwise Solana Staking ETF position.

Brown University held its IBIT exposure steady.

Quarterly 13F filings reflect end-of-quarter snapshots and often include market-making or client-driven inventory rather than directional bets.

Still, the volume of altcoin ETF exits tracks the sharp drawdons in XRP and Solana, both down more than 40% year-on-year.

The Q2 disclosures due in August will show whether the rotation continued or whether institutional appetite for altcoin funds returns.

The post Goldman Sachs Dumps XRP and Solana, Cuts Ethereum Exposure by 70% appeared first on BeInCrypto.

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The bitcoin mining firm continues on its investment path into AI data centers after raising $115 million to expand its global footprint in the industry.

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Galaxy has obtained a BitLicense from the New York State Department of Financial Services, regulatory approval to operate a cryptocurrency business in the state.

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