In Brief:
- Crypto exchange Kraken to develop NFT marketplace.
- CEO Jesse Powell said that Kraken’s NFT marketplace would allow customers to use their NFTs as security for borrowing.
- The marketplace will also provide custody services.
Jesse Powell, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the cryptocurrency exchange, ‘Kraken’ says that Kraken is working on a non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace that would cater to customers who want to do more than just collect digital art.
In an interview, Powell revealed that the marketplace would also provide custody services and Kraken is thinking of a system where customers can use their NFTs as a ‘security’ for borrowing funds after determining the liquidation value of the NFT deposited.
He said, “If you deposit a CryptoPunk on Kraken, we want to be able to reflect the value of that in your account. And if you want to borrow funds against that”.
Powell also described 2021 as a milestone for NFTs as it made a lot of news and attracted mainstream attention from artists, sportspeople, patrons, investors and everyone alike.
“It’s kind of shocking. For the first 10 years of Bitcoin we were trying so hard to sell people on why they should be interested in Bitcoin,” said Powell. “I guess it took the right combination of events, something really popular like NBA Top Shots that really got people talking about it.”
“Phase one was speculation, phase two is buying art and supporting artists, phase three is going to be functional uses of NFTs,” said Powell. Using deposited NFTs as collateral on Kraken could be one of those uses, he said
Kraken, thus, is looking to enter the NFT space early next year.
Interestingly, as tokens including Bitcoin and Ether reached record highs and some meme-coins notched 5-digit returns, the trading volume on Kraken jumped 420%. Speaking on which, Powell said, “It could get there if we’re getting a ton of requests from customers, or Elon’s tweeting about it”.
On December 22, Kraken had announced the acquisition of ‘Staked’ for non-custodial crypto staking.
