The Kraken parent company Payward has initiated legal action against Powertrade, an encrypted derivative platform, alleging that the latter and its co-founders have misappropriated some $7.2 million of digital assets and unrealized gains. In furtherance of the claim, Payward has applied to the United States Federal Court for evidence in order to obtain information from various United States financial institutions concerning PowerTrade and its founders.
Allegations involving retroactive changes in account transactions
According to court documents, Payward charged Powertrade with transferring over $6 million from its platform account through a series of unilateral, unauthorized transactions. The pleadings state that these operations included the retroactive cancellation of a profit-making transaction that Payward had settled or settled several months earlier, in order to create a loss and negative balance of the account and further usurp the original encumbered assets.
According to the spokesperson for Kraken, the aim of the proceedings was to recover the relevant funds. The company stated that the evidence requested would help it identify additional assets that could be frozen and prevent the subject from continuing to cause harm to other participants in the industry.
Kraken said he tried to withdraw money last year.
The document shows that Kraken has been trading corporate-level encrypted derivatives through Powertrade since 2022. PowerTrade was created by Mario Gomez Lozada in partnership with Bernd Sischka and operated in connection with the United Arab Emirates and El Salvador.
Payward stated that after the fall of Bitcoin prices in October 2025 and the weakening of the market as a whole, companies began to worry about PowerTrade ' s liquidity and credit position and attempted to withdraw funds, but failed. The application stated that Powertrade had subsequently implemented a series of unauthorized account adjustments, which resulted in Payward ' s account being converted from holding over $6 million in assets to close to a negative balance of $2 million.
A temporary freezing order was obtained in Dubai.
Kraken also indicated that a temporary global freeze order against Powertrade and its co-founder had been obtained at the Dubai International Financial Centre court and that further legal proceedings had been initiated in other jurisdictions. This means that the case is not confined to a single territorial proceeding, but is in the cross-border asset recovery phase.
As at the time of the release, Powertrade had not responded to the media comment request.