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Less than two months after Coinbase debuted on the stock exchange, rival crypto exchange Kraken is bringing its mobile app to the United States as retail investors flock to digital currencies.
Starting Wednesday, the new Kraken app will allow many users across the United States to securely buy and sell over 50 crypto tokens from their mobile phones.
“This consumer app is our first major foray into supporting broader consumer adoption in a much more streamlined and easy-to-use interface,” Jeremy Welch, chief product officer, told CNBC. The app was launched in Europe earlier this year.
In terms of transaction volume, Kraken is the fourth largest digital currency exchange in the world.
In an area crowded with cryptocurrency applications, Kraken claims to offer “the lowest fees in the industry.” He stresses that its quick verification and on-boarding times are a key advantage. The fastest onboarding and buying test takes less than a minute, depending on the user’s bank.
Outside of the United States, Kraken is popular due to its margin and futures trading offers, which are not yet available to American consumers. Launched in 2013, Kraken has 7 million customers. He said his trading volume in May was more than six-fold from January.
“The past five months have been pretty surreal at the Kraken,” Welch said. “We have seen an increase in the number of new customers and historic records.”
The app doesn’t yet allow credit and debit card payments, but the company said it plans to improve its offerings in the coming weeks and months.
The company said it does not provide service to residents of New York and Washington state due to the “cost of maintaining regulatory compliance.”
Entry into the US market comes at a time of regulatory uncertainty and in the midst of a particularly volatile cycle. While bitcoin quadrupled in value last year, the price has fallen more than 40% from its April high.
Officials ranging from U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde have raised concerns about the harmful use of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin.
Kraken CEO Jesse Powell previously told CNBC he believes there may be a broader crackdown on crypto trading. Powell said the United States is more “short-sighted” than other countries and “sensitive” to pressures from incumbent incumbents like banks, which “may lose if crypto becomes a big deal.”
While US customer balances with funds held in US banks are FDIC insured up to $ 250,000, Kraken has taken a different approach.
In a note to clients on its website, Kraken said that although the company takes “great care to protect the assets” of clients from loss, exchanges do not qualify for deposit insurance programs and should not. no longer function as cryptocurrency wallets.
Kraken is registered as a money services business with the US Treasury Department’s FinCEN and claims that it complies “with legal and regulatory requirements in all jurisdictions” in which it does business.
Ahead of the May sell-off in the crypto market, Powell said the company plans to go public in 2022 via direct listing, similar to the route Coinbase is taking.
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly indicated the types of assets that are insured by the FDIC.
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