Kraken, a popular cryptocurrency exchange, has introduced its own self-custody wallet for digital assets, joining other major players in the industry such as Binance, OKX, Coinbase, Bitget, and Bybit. According to the exchange staff, anyone can use the multichain Kraken Wallet to access the decentralized financial system, regardless of whether they are a Kraken client or not. The wallet currently supports assets on eight blockchains, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Solana (SOL), Optimism, Base, Arbitrum, Polygon, and Dogecoin (DOGE).
The developers of the Kraken Wallet app claim that it only collects the bare minimum amount of data necessary to function as a wallet, and even internal app performance analytics are not collected. The company emphasizes security by incorporating mobile biometrics and user password protection, and the app’s code has been audited by Trail of Bits. Moreover, the code is open-source and available on GitHub.
In terms of functionality, Kraken Wallet supports decentralized finance (DeFi) tokens, nonfungible tokens (NFTs), and interaction with decentralized applications (dApps) through Wallet Connect. The wallet also offers customer support that is available 24/7/365.
Eric Kuhn, the product director for Kraken Wallet, highlighted the importance of investing in a user’s keys and the crypto ecosystem, which is crucial for ensuring permissionless financial access.
Cryptocurrency exchanges have increasingly ventured into the self-custody wallet sector due to stricter regulations imposed on their activities worldwide. Kraken itself has made some changes to its supported tokens in response to regulatory requirements. For instance, it recently announced that it would no longer support the Monero privacy token for customers in Ireland and Belgium. Last year, the exchange also suspended support for several stablecoins, including Tether (USDT) and DAI, for its Canadian users.
Self-custody wallets are not subject to the same regulations as money transmitters or exchanges in many jurisdictions since they do not facilitate fiat money transactions. In a positive development for the industry, the European Parliament eliminated a 1,000 euro ($1,080) limit on cryptocurrency payments from self-hosted crypto wallets as part of new Anti-Money Laundering laws. Similarly, a U.S. District Judge ruled that Coinbase Wallet is not considered a broker and is therefore not subject to brokerage rules set by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
In related news, the Trust Wallet iOS app is currently under investigation in the U.S. for a potential vulnerability.