Over the past fortnight, Kraken has posted roughly 50 Cyprus-linked vacancies on LinkedIn, signalling that the European playbook of the American crypto exchange is shifting to execution.
The hiring blitz follows Kraken’s 2025 purchase of CFD broker Greenfield Wealth, a deal that delivered a Cyprus Investment Firm (CIF) licence and, with it, a passport into Europe’s MiFID regime, as well as securing a MiCA license in the same year.
Senior Roles Dominate, with a Focus on Engineering
A closer look under the bonnet shows that roughly 70% of the vacancies target senior or managerial talent. The Regulatory MiFID Officer role stands out, alongside heavyweight hires such as the Global Head of Middle Office and a Senior AI/ML Engineer.
While pay is not stated in the listings, the top-heavy mix will require significant investment.
According to web3.career, a crypto and blockchain job board, the average yearly salary of a legal expert in the space is US$170,000, while senior positions in AI/ML engineering can fetch salaries between US$146,000 and US$277,000.
The largest share of vacancies – nearly half – sits in software engineering and technical functions, so product and platform development appear to be priorities.
Product and design roles form the next tier, followed by compliance, legal and risk. Operations, finance and marketing roles are present but less prominent.
Elements of the hiring mix appear consistent with building out the MiFID license, while others, particularly engineering roles, likely support the exchange’s broader platform.
The Lines Between Exchanges and CFD Brokers Are Evolving
A growing chorus of crypto exchanges has moved to acquire MiFID licences. In 2025 alone, Coinbase bought the Cyprus unit of BUX, which had offered CFDs under the Stryk brand, while Crypto.com purchased AllNew Investment, the operator of LegacyFX, another CFD provider.
The calculation is straightforward: MiFID opens the door to derivatives – futures, options and potentially CFDs – whereas the EU’s MiCA framework is focused primarily on spot trading and custody.
As Kris Marszalek, co-founder and chief executive of Crypto.com, said at the time, securing MiFID alongside MiCA “further solidifies” the exchange’s ability to offer a comprehensive regulated product suite across the European Economic Area.
Kraken, though, appears to be among the first of this cohort to embark on a hiring push of this breadth.
At the same time, established brokers are rolling out spot crypto, often via white-label solutions. Pepperstone, which built its own crypto exchange internally, recently joined the trend by offering physical crypto to its Australian clients.
For Pepperstone’s Group CEO Tamas Szabo, while the lines between brokers and exchanges are evolving, “client priorities remain constant: cost, execution quality, trust and, increasingly, user experience.”
This article was written by Adonis Adoni at www.financemagnates.com.
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