#1 countryin Kraken's global KOL program
Ukraine finished the quarter first by revenue among 18 program markets, built from zero
Case Study — Kraken × Ukraine
Kraken engaged Solus to lead its full Ukrainian market entry: strategy, localization, community, creators, campaigns, lifecycle, and events, delivered by one accountable team. Everything below happened in a single quarter.
Most of the world still pictures Ukraine as a country at war. Kraken found its #1 market.
None of these numbers happen without Ivan Paskar, Head of EM Growth at Kraken and the teams on both sides who built this together. Thanks too to everyone else on both sides whose work made this timeline possible — we're honored to have led it.
Ukraine is one of the most crypto-active countries on earth, and one of the hardest to impress. The audience is experienced, quick to dismiss anything that feels imported, and already loyal to local players who got there first.
Kraken wanted in anyway. Real presence, real users, real trust. One quarter, from a standing start. No local team, no community, no creator network. Day one was a blank page.
Ninety days later, the curve on the right is what the market answered.
Few markets use crypto as intensively, per person, as Ukraine, and regulation is moving toward clarity.
Localization, creators, campaigns, education, events, and operations, with market strategy, community management, and lifecycle CRM running underneath. Each fed the others: content armed the community, the community gave creators credibility, creators amplified campaigns, and events turned online attention into face-to-face trust.
Bilingual blog posts, campaign pages, App Store listings, and re-versioned global creative including paid video. From the launch announcement to the Kraken Pro store page, every touchpoint reads as if it originated in Ukraine.
Identification, onboarding, briefing, exclusive competitions with monthly prize pools, plus payment and performance infrastructure. By quarter's end it was the largest and best-performing single-market cohort in Kraken's global program.
Market-entry welcome mechanics paying rewards in real on-chain assets, product-led promos built on local hooks, and partner activations, each pairing an incentive with lifecycle follow-through toward a first trade.
Learn-and-earn: onboarding newcomers while reinforcing trust with experienced users. Launching soon, stay tuned.
Ukraine's flagship Web3 event, with Kraken as ecosystem partner. Solus owned the on-site delivery end to end: creative direction, production, event creatives, branded merchandise, and the Kraken activation area, staffed by our team from opening to closing, onboarding users on the spot.
Workflow mapping, content pipelines, compliance tracking, and cross-partner coordination kept all eight workstreams running simultaneously. That backbone made a 90-day timeline realistic.
All figures are rankings, percentages, and multiples. Confidential platform data stays confidential.
Ahead of every market worldwide by quarter's end, including the US, with a meaningful double-digit share of global program revenue from a single country, built from zero.
Over half of Ukrainian sign-ups became active traders, roughly 1.4× the US benchmark. In a skeptical market, conversion is the proof of credibility.
Ukraine delivered ~25% of the program's new trading users worldwide, outperforming markets with years of head start.
Program revenue covered total investment nearly twice over. Fast entries usually burn money first; this one paid for itself as it ran.
The biggest single-market roster in Kraken's global program, built from zero in three months.
If a global exchange can go from zero to its #1 worldwide market in 90 days, Ukraine deserves a place on your expansion map. The strongest fits:
The world's top per-capita adoption market. Demand converts fast when the entry is credible.
High digital-payment fluency and a receptive, mobile-first user base hungry for alternatives.
Deep on-chain activity and a community that rewards authentic participation over paid impressions.
One of Europe's largest, fastest-adapting engineering talent pools with a strong AI innovation base.
Ukraine rewards speed, authenticity, and real local execution. That's the game Solus is built to win.
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