Kraken Launches Crypto’s Attempt at a Venmo-Killer

Kraken’s rising from the decentralized deep to capsize a big ship: traditional finance. The crypto platform launched a peer-to-peer payments app yesterday that lets users instantly send 300+ crypto tokens, stablecoins and fiat currencies to friends and family in more than 100 countries. 

Anyone who has had to split a check with new hostel friends knows that rivals Venmo and Zelle only support payments between US users. Kraken’s app, called Krak, also doesn’t charge fees for cross-border payments or transfers from one currency to another, setting it apart from PayPal.

Kraken’s app is meant to serve as an entry point to digital assets for the crypto-cautious, with rewards of up to 10% on Krak account balances to entice new users. Krak is also part of Kraken’s push into traditional finance to diversify revenue ahead of a planned IPO.

‘Banking Sucks’

Those are the words of Kraken exec Mark Greenberg as Kraken and other crypto companies try to put their blockchain-backed spins on traditional finance: 

• Kraken debuted tokens that represent US equities for non-US users, letting them trade representations of stocks like Nvidia and Tesla over the blockchain. It also bought futures-trading platform NinjaTrader this spring for $1.5 billion.
• Crypto exchange Coinbase teamed up with Shopify to launch a payments platform (creatively named Coinbase Payments) that lets merchants accept payments using the stablecoin USDC. The issuer of USDC, Circle, also introduced a cross-border payments network this spring. 

At the same time, TradFi isn’t going down without a fight: JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Wells Fargo are reportedly exploring the creation of a joint stablecoin, and brokerages like Morgan Stanley and Charles Schwab are working on adding crypto trading. 

Hot Coin Summer: The line between traditional and digital finance has grown blurry in the Trump era as regulatory actions against crypto companies have eased. In March, the SEC dropped a lawsuit accusing Kraken of operating an unregistered securities exchange, following the agency’s abandonment of a similar suit against rival Coinbase. Both sides of the finance world have read the new room and aren’t missing the opportunity to try to eat each other’s lunch.