important point
- According to Marco Santori, chief legal officer of Kraken, Kraken Bank will be launched soon.
- Kraken initially obtained bank charter approval in 2020.
- The bank will be fully online and provide “comprehensive deposit acceptance, custody and custody services for digital assets.”
share this article
The crypto industry may be suffering from regulatory crackdowns in the US, but that hasn’t stopped Kraken from trying to launch its own bank.
kraken bank
The current regulatory environment doesn’t scare Kraken.
Marco Santori, chief legal officer of the cryptocurrency exchange, confirmed on The Scoop podcast that Kraken will soon be launching its own bank. “Kraken Bank is on track to launch soon,” he said. “We’re going to have pens with little ball chains. We’re going to order thousands of them and put them on the desks of the ubiquitous Wall Street banks. With our logo.”
Kraken initially secured Wyoming approval to establish a Special Purpose Depository Institution (SPDI) in 2020. ”, becoming the first regulated U.S. bank to offer “comprehensive deposit-taking, custody and trustee services for digital assets.”
Cheyenne-based Kraken Bank was originally scheduled to launch in 2021, followed by a phased launch through 2022. The bank said its service will be rolled out first to existing U.S.-based Kraken customers, with potential for international expansion in the future. Instead, we do all our business online and via mobile devices.
Santori also addressed the regulatory crackdown the crypto industry is currently facing in the US. Kraken recently reached a $30 million settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission over a staking program it was ordered to close in the United States to the bank itself.
“We are going back to a time when banks were very cautious about which accounts they opened,” Santori said. “Wall Street is doing well. Kraken and Coinbase are doing okay. But the next few years are going to be a really tough road for guys and gals with new ideas on how to provide infrastructure for the crypto economy. No question.”
Disclaimer: At the time of writing, the author of this article owned BTC, ETH, and several other crypto assets.