Companies • March 20, 2024, 9:31AM EDT
Published 1 minute earlier on
Quick Take
- Kraken’s platform for institutional investors launched custody services.
- The move creates competition for Coinbase, which become the custody platform of choice for institutional investors issuing spot bitcoin ETFs.
Kraken launched custody services for Kraken Institutional, a platform specifically for institutional investors, the crypto exchange announced Wednesday. The new custodial service, called Kraken Custody, will provide digital asset custodial services and create deposit accounts for institutions, according to an official release. Kraken Custody will also let institutions store, manage and transfer their funds within a single interface, protected by Kraken's in-house security protocols. "The launch of Kraken Custody has timed well with the Bitcoin BTC
+0.86%
ETF debut breaking all sorts of first in US capital markets," a Kraken spokesperson told The Block. "We anticipate demand for qualified custody solutions will continue to grow alongside the crypto products space." Kraken's state-chartered banking arm Kraken Financial, based in Wyoming, facilitates the institutional custody service. “The state of Wyoming’s clear regulatory structure means Kraken Financial can offer qualified custody that fully meets institutions’ requirements,” said Trevor Rutar, CEO of Kraken Financial, in a statement. “Under the supervision of the Wyoming Division of Banking, Kraken Financial will be subject to some of the most rigorous security and operational checks of any crypto custodian.” Kraken launched institutional services on Feb. 27 this year after BlackRock, Franklin Templeton and Grayscale Investments tapped Coinbase as their spot bitcoin ETF custodian. Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet that delivers news, research, and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor of The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the crypto space. Crypto exchange Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to deliver objective, impactful, and timely information about the crypto industry. Here are our current financial disclosures. © 2023 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
About Author
MK Manoylov has been a reporter for The Block since 2020 — joining just before bitcoin surpassed $20,000 for the first time. Since then, MK has written nearly 1,000 articles for the publication, covering any and all crypto news but with a penchant toward NFT, metaverse, web3 gaming, funding, crime, hack and crypto ecosystem stories. MK holds a graduate degree from New York University's Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program (SHERP) and has also covered health topics for WebMD and Insider. You can follow MK on X @MManoylov and on LinkedIn.