A major digital currency exchange known as Kraken has added an additional support for wire transfers when it comes to both US Dollars and other government-issued currencies. An updated deposit feature and withdrawal upgrades were also on the cards for Kraken this year, and these exceptional advancements could see a huge improvement when it comes to the service that the digital currency exchange provides its customers. Kraken are an extremely up and coming digital currency exchange, and has had a number of updates this year. Here at Bitcoin Casino Pro, we’re taking a look at the changes the Bitcoin exchange has implemented, and how this will affect the markets.
Who Are Kraken?
Kraken are a small start-up based in San Francisco, who were founded back in 2011. Despite still being a young digital currency exchange, it is actually the largest Bitcoin exchange in euro volume and liquidity in the world, and was the first Bitcoin exchange to have had its trading price and volume displayed on the Bloomberg Terminal. Not only does it have hundreds of thousands of traders that use the exchange, due to the fact it deals in Canadian dollars, US dollars, British Pounds and Japanese Yen as well as the Euro, it is also trusted by one of Germany’s BaFin regulated banks, Fidor Bank, and a court-appointed trustee in Tokyo’s government too.
New International Wire Options
Funding accounts with US Dollars, British Pounds and Euros were made available by Kraken back in April, and these new international wire options allowed the market to open up on a much more accessible and grander scale. Deposits and withdrawals became available in all areas except the US (as these were already covered), and while there were a number of small fees (10 USD/ 10 GDP / 10 EUR for deposits and 60 USD / 60 GDP / 60 EUR for withdrawals) this announcement was aimed at streamlining the entire process within for the exchange, as it looks to start competing against some of the bigger digital currency names.
Kraken’s New Trading Volume Record
On May 5, 2017, Kraken set a record for trading volume in a 24 hour period, which was across all digital assets that the exchange deals with. This trading volume hit a whopping $178, 521,474 which was a 25% increase from their previous trading volume record which was set in March 2017. Unsurprisingly, it was Bitcoin that trumped the trading volume record for the digital currency exchange and with the huge rise in value that the Bitcoin has experienced over the past few months, we are likely to see this trend continuing. Other digital currencies that Kraken deal with include Ethereum, Ripple and Litecoin.
Is The Digital Currency Exchange Market Stable?
When these announcements were made, it was noticed that the digital currency exchange market around the globe was actually beginning to falter. The world’s largest Bitcoin exchange by USD volume, Bitfinex, said that is was suffering from banking problems and was therefore unable to accept inbound wire transfers. The company had previously faced issues and even went to court over issues that were related to outbound wire transfers in USD. This led to people beginning to believe that another Mt.Gox failure was imminent, particularly after the initial problems Mt.Gox faced was to do with their issues with fiat withdrawals. This even led to Bitfinex trading at more than $50 premium at the time, with Bitcoin trading at roughly $1,235 at 18:55 UTC compared to what was $1,185 on Bitstamp and $1190 on GDAX. Bitfinex even faced a hack that lost nearly $65m in customer funds back in August 2016, which shows the instability of the digital exchanges.
Changes In The Market
The instability and vulnerability of the digital currency exchange market is however, set to change. With stricter regulations and crackdowns coming in from countries like China, and the legalisation of the cryptocurrency in Japan which has led to a number of regulations that need to be put in place for the digital currency exchanges, it is highly likely that we will see this stabilise dramatically. Not only is this helping Bitcoin casinos to grow, it is helping to make new paths for other industries to begin accepting and using the Bitcoin on a regular basis. With up and coming digital currency exchanges like Kraken growing and developing within this more stabilised environment, it is no surprise that the value of the Bitcoin is growing. A more stabilised market, and more regulated digital currency exchanges will lead to a growth in investors and we will continue to see a growth in the value of the Bitcoin.
