Kraken announced a High-Touch VIP Program on December 4, 2025, aimed at Ultra High Net Worth (UHNW) individuals and institutional allocators. The program positions Kraken to provide bespoke, compliance-ready infrastructure and concierge services designed to bridge traditional finance and crypto for large, active accounts.
Program architecture and institutional services
Kraken structured the High-Touch VIP Program as an invitation-only service that pairs each member with a dedicated Relationship Manager supported by product, engineering, liquidity, custody and infrastructure teams. Membership includes early access to private betas and structured feedback channels so large clients can influence the product roadmap.
Institutional-grade trading infrastructure components advertised for the program include ultra-low-latency execution reportedly near 2 ms, guaranteed sequencing, and Level 3 market data delivered alongside a unified FIX specification covering spot and futures markets.
Level 3 market data is the most granular order-book feed, showing individual orders and depth; FIX is a messaging standard used to communicate trade orders and market data between institutions and trading venues. These elements combine to reduce execution uncertainty and support automation for sophisticated trading stacks.
Eligibility, incentives, client features and competitive positioning
Access is strictly by invitation and tied to platform engagement. Kraken sets explicit usage benchmarks: maintaining an average asset balance of $10 million or more, or exceeding $80 million in annual trading volume (including margin, futures or equivalent product use). The program bundles premium onboarding, one-on-one analyst sessions, milestone recognition and curated client experiences that include global events and private gatherings.
A notable commercial incentive is the Market Participation Program, which issues equity-linked rewards—warrants exercisable for Kraken common stock—to large clients as a mechanism to align liquidity provision and trading activity with Kraken’s long-term interests. The offering also includes liquidity incentives and compliance-ready custody and staking services intended to meet institutional operational and regulatory requirements.
Kraken frames the initiative as a bridge between TradFi expectations and crypto-native infrastructure: a combination of regulated custody, bespoke service, and trading performance credentials. The program is presented as differentiating Kraken by merging institutional incentives and direct product influence for its largest users, while underscoring strategic partnerships such as collaboration with Deutsche Börse to reinforce market connectivity and credibility.
Kraken’s High-Touch VIP Program centralizes institutional infrastructure, tailored service and equity-linked incentives to retain and activate very large accounts, with membership gated by clear engagement thresholds. The immediate milestone to watch is client participation in private betas and the feedback cycle that will shape subsequent product releases and integrations, with the next verified milestone being uptake and feedback from invited UHNW and institutional members during private beta phases and subsequent product rollouts.
