Kraken crypto exchange has revealed plans to open its own bank soon. The project is moving towards an early launch, Kraken general counsel Marco Santori told The Block.
Kraken is an American centralized cryptocurrency exchange founded in 2011. The platform ranks 20th in terms of daily trading volume over the past 24 hours with an indicator of $256 million, according to CoinGecko. 216 cryptocurrencies and 641 trading pairs are represented on the exchange. 46% of trades fall on the pairs of USDT to the euro and the US dollar, on bitcoin trading to these currencies — 17.6%.
Kraken plans to open a new bank despite the increased attention and increased control from regulators to the crypto industry. Over the past four months alone, the exchange, which is trying to comply with all legal requirements, has faced the need to pay fines to regulators in the amount of more than $ 30.3 million.
At the end of November 2022, Kraken agreed to pay $362 thousand as part of the settlement of claims with the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) in the case of violation of sanctions against Iran. The platform also pledged to invest another $100 thousand in monitoring compliance with sanctions.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has accused the exchange of not properly registering its stacking program. To settle this charge, Kraken closed stacking for American customers and agreed to pay a $30 million fine to the regulator.
Santory declined to discuss the settlement with the SEC, but said the stacking accounted for a small percentage of Kraken’s revenue. At the same time, he noted that the SEC’s actions will force American clients who want to participate in stacking to go to riskier exchanges.
Santory also stated that the Kraken exchange was not affected by the problems of Silvergate Bank. One of the few banks specializing in cryptocurrencies, Silvergate reported financial problems, after which major exchanges and other industry participants began to refuse to work with it. Last week, the bank announced the termination of the Silvergate Exchange Network (SEN) crypto translation network.