Following the announcement of competitor cryptocurrency exchanges Binance and OKX’s withdrawal intentions, Kraken is benefiting by remaining in Canada. Kraken’s customer deposits in the country grew by 25% in the weeks following Binance’s departure, and it saw a fivefold increase in downloads of its two mobile apps for Canadian clients within a week of OKX’s departure. Coinbase, a Nasdaq-listed exchange, said it was happy to commit to Canada’s enhanced Pre-Registration Undertaking (PRU). Kraken has been in Canada for over 10 years, has more than 250 staff there, and has been a money services business in the country since 2019. Companies’ need to retain a sizable amount of customer funds with a third-party custodian is one of the demanding new requirements for cryptocurrency exchanges put forth by the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) earlier this year.
Cryptocurrency exchange is done applying for a licence in Singapore after receiving preliminary clearance there in June. The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has officially granted the exchange its Major Payment Institution (MPI) licence for Digital Payment Token (DPT) services. The MAS set a high standard for company approvals by pledging to be “brutal and unrelentingly hard” on unethical behaviour in the cryptocurrency business last year. However, the authority also granted an in-principle licence to a number of well-known cryptocurrency firms in the previous year, including Coinbase and Blockchain.com.
