[6] Kraken was co-founded in 2011 by Jesse Powell, an alumnus of California State University, Sacramento, with Thanh Luu and Michael Gronager.

[17] A month later, Kraken announced the completion of its Series B round of investment, led by the SBI Group; the company also acquired Dutch exchange CleverCoin,[18] and Glidera, a cryptocurrency wallet service.

[21] In April 2018, Kraken announced closure of its services in Japan due to the rising costs of doing business;[22] the company returned to the Japanese market in 2020.

[29] In September 2022, Dave Ripley – then chief operating officer – replaced Powell who became chairman of Kraken's board of directors.

[31] In February 2023, Kraken shut down its operations in Japan for the second time, and in the United Arab Emirates, less than a year after securing a license in the region.

[32][23] In June 2023, Kraken's NFT marketplace officially launched out of beta testing, with the option for users to pay for listings via fiat or cryptocurrency.

[38] In April 2018, Kraken refused to cooperate with an investigation by the New York Attorney General's Office regarding the measures taken by cryptocurrency exchanges to protect their customers from market manipulation and money laundering, finding the associated expenditure to be bad for business.

[39] The report warned that the Kraken might be breaking the law, suggested that customers stay away from it, and referred the platform to New York State Department of Financial Services for potential violation of local virtual currency regulations.

[48] In May 2019, Kraken filed a motion in California's Marin County Superior Court attempting to identify ten anonymous reviewers on Glassdoor.

[8] Among other things, employees were prohibited from labelling others' comments as "toxic, hateful, racist", etc., and particular emphasis was assigned on how "offensiveness" was not forbidden.

[53] In October 2024, Kraken laid off around 400 employees, accounting for 15% of its workforce, as part of a corporate restructuring which added Arjun Sethi as co-CEO.