This is a significant achievement for Kraken, a US based company and a big name in the crypto world, as it gives them the regulatory authority to operate across the entirety of the EU.

Kraken is one of the biggest crypto exchange platforms out there, giving crypto investors an all-in-one place to buy and sell their digital assets. However, once these cryptocurrencies have been bought by the investor, they need to be stored, and this is where anonymous crypto wallets become a necessity. Crypto wallets are quite different from wallets for traditional currency. Instead of holding the coins themselves, they store the private keys that give crypto users access to their assets.

This is not the first time Kraken has developed connections with the country of Ireland, and the company had already obtained a service provider license in the past. The license also enables them to operate in several other countries across the EU, including France and Italy. However, this MICA license is still a significant milestone for their company.

A spokesperson for Kraken stated that the new license will give them the legal right to expand their product across the whole of Europe. As a part of this, they will likely begin to offer derivatives, spot trading, and payments to retail, professional, and institutional clients all across the EU. 

Kraken’s co-chief executive, Arjun Sethi, revealed that the company’s obtaining of the license “isn’t just about compliance,” but instead it represents a bigger picture for the company. He sees it as a symbol of Kraken’s dedication to “expanding the crypto ecosystem through responsible innovation.”

He then went on to commend the team at Kraken, revealing that they had all worked tirelessly to see this dream become a reality for the company. He noted that the Central Bank of Ireland had “gold standard regulatory expectations” and drew attention to how much of an achievement it is for the people at Kraken to have met those expectations. 

He also revealed that the obtaining of the license would now allow Kraken to expand its product, and he drew attention to the millions of new individuals and businesses that the company will now be able to support with fully regulated crypto services. 

All of this has proved a welcome change for Irish crypto enthusiasts after two of the other big names in crypto exchange platforms, Coinbase and Gemini, left the market. Both had abandoned the European market, Coinbase for Luxembourg and Gemini for Malta, after having a headquarters set up in Ireland since 2023.

At the moment, an estimated 13% of Irish residents own cryptocurrency, which, although substantial, is still much lower than in one of crypto’s biggest hubs, the United States, which has over 28% of American adults owning at least one form of crypto asset. The success of Kraken, then, is likely to have a positive impact on the attitude the people of Ireland have towards cryptocurrency more generally.

Although crypto is gaining popularity across the globe at an exponential rate, many people are still nervous about investing in themselves. There are multiple reasons for this. Firstly, the very first cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, did not even emerge until 2009, and spent many years as an underground asset with very little popularity. When compared to other forms of payment, this makes cryptocurrency relatively new. 

On top of this, crypto is known for having high volatility. In this context, volatility refers to the tendency of a digital asset to rise or fall in value over time. Once again, this concept can be best understood when we look to the first-ever cryptocurrency to emerge, Bitcoin. Today, Bitcoin is the most popular and well-regarded digital asset out there with an estimated value of just under €100,000. However, upon its creation in 2009, this number did not even reach a single euro. Time and popularity have seen the asset value surge.

On the surface, this might seem like a benefit, and for many investors it is, but just as market volatility can cause an asset to increase in value, so too can it cause its value to plummet. This is why crypto investors are advised to never invest more than they can afford to lose.

Hopefully, with Kraken able to offer support and advice alongside offering crypto services across Ireland and the EU, more people will come to understand crypto better and uncover the many benefits that owning digital assets can have.