• What is happening with the Kraken ecosystem?
• Which projects you can take part in right now
• How to participate in activities and what you need for it
• Potential rewards
• What other specifics are worth considering?
As of June 2026, Kraken is one of the largest centralized crypto exchanges, with more than 5.7 million active accounts and a combined transaction volume across all platforms of around $2 trillion. And despite all of this, it still does not have a token, while its affiliated blockchain appeared relatively recently.
To fill these gaps, the Kraken team is expanding its ecosystem beyond the exchange. We have already partly covered this topic in our review of the tokenized xStocks shares, but this is only one of the project's development directions, which is accompanied by reward-based activities and user acquisition campaigns.
The Incrypted team looked into how the Kraken ecosystem is developing, how to take part in the upcoming token distribution and how much you can potentially earn from it.
What is happening with the Kraken ecosystem?
Compared with most major centralized crypto exchanges, Kraken long stood out for its relatively underdeveloped ecosystem beyond the main platform. The company focused on regulation, security and trading tools, while Web3 and DeFi remained secondary directions.
However, since 2024 Kraken has begun to expand its ecosystem through partnerships and new product directions:
- in November 2024, Kraken became one of the participants in the Global Dollar Network alongside Anchorage Digital, Galaxy Digital, Paxos and Robinhood. As part of this initiative, the USDG stablecoin was introduced;
- in December 2024, the team launched Ink — an L2 blockchain built on the Optimism Superchain, intended to become the technical infrastructure for Kraken's Web3 and DeFi services;
- in June 2025, the exchange integrated trading of tokenized xStocks shares, becoming one of the first exchanges to offer such products to its clients;
- in parallel, the company began expanding its payments direction through the Krak app, launched in June 2025, and later introduced the Krak Card — a Mastercard debit card for payments in cryptocurrency and fiat currencies;
- that same year, 2025, the first key DeFi protocols began to appear on the Ink network — first and foremost the Tydro lending protocol and the Nado derivatives platform. According to DeFi Llama, at the time of writing the volume of funds locked in the network is around $173 million.
In addition, Kraken carried out a number of strategic deals and integrations to broaden users' access to new trading tools and strengthen its infrastructure. In particular, in 2025 the company announced the purchase of NinjaTrader for $1.5 billion, and also acquired Small Exchange for $100 million in order to develop regulated trading infrastructure in the US.
The development of the ecosystem is also accompanied by active acquisition of a new audience and, above all, traders. That is why practically all of Kraken's key directions directly or indirectly involve incentivizing user activity.
It is also important to take into account that Kraken has substantial resources to fund these incentives. In November 2025 alone the company raised $200 million, and the total amount of investment, according to CryptoRank, exceeds $900 million. In addition, for the full year 2025 the adjusted revenue of Payward, Kraken's parent company, reached $2.2 billion.
It is also worth noting separately that Kraken, unlike a number of competitors, still does not have its own token, so the value created by the platform is not yet distributed among its holders. All of this makes the project one of the most interesting from the standpoint of reward-based participation.
Which projects you can take part in right now
As of June 2026, the Kraken ecosystem is running several user acquisition campaigns for different projects. Some have already announced a token or revealed the details of a points program, while others have not yet. At the same time, belonging to a shared network creates opportunities to earn additional rewards through simultaneous participation.
Ink
Ink is an L2 network developed by Kraken on the OP Stack to provide infrastructure for the exchange's DeFi ecosystem. The project is designed to connect Kraken's blockchain products with users, giving them access to trading, liquidity and other tools.
In June 2025, the Ink Foundation announced plans to issue the INK token, and later Kraken confirmed the integration of the Ink token and protocols into its core products. The asset is expected to become part of the Kraken Drops program and to be distributed among active Kraken users and ecosystem participants.
You can take part in the project through several directions, including interacting with ecosystem protocols, using Kraken Pro and performing basic operations on the Ink network.
At the same time, it cannot be ruled out that during the future INK distribution the team will take into account activities from several sources at once. We covered the available protocols and platforms, as well as a step-by-step guide to participating in the Ink campaign, in more detail in our review article.
Farming the INK drop in the Kraken ecosystem: a complete guide 23.04.2026 ReadNado and Tydro
At the time of writing, Nado and Tydro can be considered the key protocols of the Ink ecosystem. Both projects operate inside Kraken's L2 network and are already included in the user acquisition campaign.
Nado is a decentralized exchange for trading perpetual futures. In 2026 this segment remains one of the most active directions in DeFi, and many derivatives DEXs have generously rewarded early users, traders and liquidity providers.
Through Nado, participants can carry out trading operations and accumulate points within the Ink Points system.
Nado — farming points with an eye on the drop 24.01.2026 ReadTydro, in turn, is a lending protocol built on Aave. The service allows investors to provide liquidity, and borrowers to use these funds as part of their strategies. Both sides receive points as a reward.
For Ink, Tydro is important primarily as a platform for attracting liquidity into the ecosystem. Users, in turn, can view it as a more passive but at the same time capital-intensive way of participating in the future distribution.
Tydro — being active in the project with an eye on the INK drop 19.04.2026 ReadIt is important that both projects are part of the Ink ecosystem. The issuance of tokens or separate distributions from the protocols themselves have not been confirmed, but such a possibility should not be entirely ruled out either.
Kraken Pro
Kraken Pro is one of the main channels for participating in the campaign, since user activity on the exchange is already counted within Ink Points.
Unlike the individual ecosystem protocols, here the user works with the familiar exchange platform, accumulating points for ordinary use of the service.
The program takes into account trading activity, holding of assets, staking and other actions. Points are awarded weekly based on activity over the previous period. API trading, however, is not counted.
Farming the INK drop through the Kraken exchange 13.04.2026 ReadOverall, Kraken Pro looks like one of the clearest and most accessible directions for users who want to participate in the Ink ecosystem without having to figure out how to interact with blockchain protocols.
xStocks
xStocks is another direction that may be linked to activities around Ink. This service offers tokenized shares and ETFs that can be used on the exchange itself or withdrawn to a non-custodial wallet for further interaction with ecosystem applications.
It is important to understand that xStocks is not a direct project of the ecosystem. It is a separate service connected with RWA and tokenized assets.
At the same time, xStocks is closely tied to Kraken and has already launched its own points-accrual campaign. But it cannot be entirely ruled out that in the future such activity could be taken into account when distributing INK or other ecosystem rewards. Especially if Kraken continues to consolidate its products around Ink.
A user can interact with xStocks assets and perform the available actions within the platform's own campaign. We have prepared a detailed guide on the project and the mechanics of points accrual in a separate article.
xStocks — farming points with an eye on the drop 13.03.2026 ReadHow to participate in activities and what you need for it
Before you start, it is worth preparing a basic set of tools, which depends on the chosen participation strategy.
In general, activities around Ink can be structured through two main directions. The first is connected with blockchain infrastructure, the second with Kraken's centralized products. They can be used separately or combined to cover the maximum number of activities that may be taken into account when distributing INK.
For the first approach, you will need a Web3 wallet with assets in its balance.
If you still do not have an address, you can use Kraken Wallet to create one. A direct link between using Kraken Wallet and the INK distribution has not been stated at this time, but, since it is part of Kraken's infrastructure, it cannot be ruled out that using the service could provide an additional advantage in the future.
We have already described the specific actions in the guides cited above. The main plan comes down to periodic transactions and interaction with the core protocols. At the same time, hedging strategies can be used to reduce the risk of losses due to volatility."
The second approach is built around Kraken's centralized platform and requires registering an account with access to Kraken Pro.
Within Kraken Pro, trading activity, holding of assets, staking and other actions on the platform are taken into account, and points are awarded weekly. Therefore, using the exchange can be seen as one of the clearest and most predictable ways of participating.
This route can be supplemented with interaction with xStocks tools. However, it is worth noting that the platform's own points are not awarded for holding or trading xStocks on Kraken — only for use within the blockchain infrastructure. At the same time, Kraken explicitly states that in the future it may consider supporting the xStocks campaign.
In practice, all the services combine within a more complex strategy. For example, you can use perpetual futures on individual tokenized shares available on Kraken Pro to hedge spot positions.
10 effective ways to increase your chances of a retrodrop in 2026 07.06.2026 ReadPotential rewards
Calculating the potential reward amount for participating in the Ink ecosystem is difficult due to the lack of detailed tokenomics for the blockchain. In general, one can only look to similar platforms that have already distributed tokens.
The closest to Ink itself are L2 networks like Optimism and Arbitrum, with the caveat that this is a more niche project aimed at the ecosystem of a specific exchange. Those projects at the time distributed on average about 800 OP and 1,800 ARB, which at the time trading opened were valued at roughly $1,100 and $2,500 respectively.
One of the most successful examples among derivatives platforms is considered to be the Hyperliquid airdrop — on average about 2,916 HYPE, valued at almost $20,000 at the time trading began. However, competitors also distributed substantial amounts. For instance, Lighter handed out around 199–200 million LIT, and Drift — 120 million DRIFT, which at the time trading opened were valued at roughly $675 million and $60–70 million respectively.
Source: Incrypted
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