Kraken has promoted Stavros Vassiliades to Chief Operating Officer (COO) and Executive Director of its European Union business, putting a longtime CFDs executive in charge of running its regulated EU arm. Vassiliades joined the crypto exchange last year from Pepperstone EU, the Cyprus-licensed operation of the Australian CFD broker.

His background reads like a retail-brokerage one rather than a crypto one. Before his three years as executive director at Pepperstone, Vassiliades was head of compliance at MPS Marketplace Securities and an operations and compliance manager at the Cyprus consultancy MAP Fintech.

The appointment extends a pattern Kraken set when it began offering crypto derivatives in Europe under a Cyprus license.

CFD Veterans Fill Kraken’s European Ranks

Who Kraken installs in its senior European seats says a good deal about how it plans to operate there.

Over the past year the company has packed its Cyprus entity with people from the CFD and FX world, posting roughly 50 Cyprus-linked roles in two weeks earlier this year, many in compliance, middle office and management.

Vassiliades now sits at the top of that structure as both COO and executive director. The second title carries regulatory weight under Cyprus rules, which require named individuals to be accountable for running a licensed firm.

From CFD Shell to Multi-Asset Venue

The unit he oversees, Payward Europe Digital Solutions, did not start inside Kraken. Parent company Payward acquired the Cyprus investment firm previously tied to the CFD broker now trading as PU Prime, picking up a MiFID II license that passports across the European Economic Area.

Kraken has since stretched that license well beyond crypto. It launched perpetual and fixed-maturity crypto contracts in May 2025, then added futures tied to equity indices, commodities and currencies across 26 European countries in early 2026.

“Our focus on the European market remains a top priority,” Shannon Kurtas, Kraken’s co-general manager of Pro and Exchange, said when the exchange first outlined its EU plans.

The European work runs alongside a wider move into traditional markets. Kraken bought the US futures platform NinjaTrader in a $1.5 billion deal announced in 2025 and now routes CME-listed crypto futures to American clients through it.

Crypto Exchanges Keep Buying Cyprus Licenses

Kraken is hardly alone in treating a Cyprus shell as the quickest route into regulated European trading. Coinbase acquired the Cyprus unit of BUX, once home to the Stryk CFD brand, in early 2025, renamed it Coinbase Financial Services Europe, and later switched on perpetual-style and dated futures for EEA users.

Crypto.com followed a similar route, buying CySEC-regulated A.N. Allnew Investments, operator of the LegacyFX brand, to add securities, derivatives and CFDs across the bloc.

Chief executive Kris Marszalek said pairing MiFID with a MiCA license “further solidifies” the firm’s regulated European range. Backpack, meanwhile, bought FTX’s Cyprus unit for a reported $32.7 million and began offering EU derivatives last year.

The traffic moves both ways. Established CFD brokers have been bolting on spot crypto, and Pepperstone, the firm Vassiliades left, built its own crypto exchange in-house before offering physical coins to Australian clients.

What sets Kraken apart is the depth of its hiring, examined in detail by FinanceMagnates.com, and how quickly it has layered futures, perpetuals and tokenized stocks onto a permit that started as a plain CFD license.

EU Leadership Takes Shape Before a 2027 IPO

The promotion lands while Kraken prepares to go public. The exchange filed confidentially for a US listing late last year, raised fresh capital including a $200 million investment from Deutsche Börse Group, and has watched its timeline slip toward 2027.

Regulators and prospective investors tend to look closely at how a crypto firm governs its licensed subsidiaries, which makes a named, accountable COO in Cyprus more than a routine reshuffle.

Kraken reported 2025 revenue of $2.2 billion, with the company citing product expansion across Europe and a push into traditional markets.

This article was written by Damian Chmiel at www.financemagnates.com.Executive MovesRead More

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