Cryptocurrency exchange and trading firm Kraken announced on Monday that it has acquired a company in Cyprus.
The crypto giant did not state the name of the company but said it was regulated as an investment firm by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC). Kraken also said that CySEC has approved the sale of the firm.
Acquiring an investment firm license is not about offering ‘physical’ crypto. Instead it allows Kraken to offer clients in the European Union access to trading in crypto derivatives.
Those products could be perpetual futures or, alternatively, just CFDs on crypto.
Perpetual futures are not subject to the same sorts of restrictions as CFDs, which makes them a more attractive product for firms. For example, crypto exchanges can offer deposit bonuses and higher leverage, which are restricted for CFDs.
This also seems the more likely product for Kraken to focus on, partly because they already offer it and also because one of their key employees in Cyprus is working on it.
Alexia Theodorou has been working for Kraken in Cyprus for almost four years as Kraken Futures Product Lead. She has prior experience at JP Morgan and UBS. Before joining Kraken she was Chief Strategy Officer at Trading Point Group, the parent company of broker XM, for almost three years.
Kraken published financial results at the end of last week showing it generated $1.5bn in revenue last year, with client assets on the platform in excess of $42bn.
