Now greater than ever, Kraken stays deeply dedicated to Canada.
However our dedication to the Nice White North isn’t simply hype. It’s a relationship that stretches again to the earliest days of Bitcoin itself.
The early years
Kraken’s Canada story begins in 2011 – the 12 months CaVirtEx, an early Canadian crypto buying and selling platform primarily based in Calgary, first opened its doorways. CaVirtEx was busy sustaining the infrastructure that facilitated the earliest Canadian greenback (CAD) to bitcoin (BTC) trades. Proper across the identical time, we have been discovering our personal sea legs as one of many earliest crypto buying and selling platforms in america.
Like most Canadian crypto buying and selling platforms, CaVirtEx confronted challenges discovering dependable banking companions. Nonetheless, the staff managed to ascertain connections with many native banks and develop a dependable technique to execute fiat-to-crypto transfers. By way of CaVirtEx, Canadians started their crypto journey and found the potential of decentralization via Bitcoin. CaVirtEx constructed a dependable technique to bridge conventional finance with the rising cryptocurrency business.
The corporate was small however mighty, providing buying and selling providers for the nascent Canadian crypto business. CaVirtEx quickly constructed a repute as a serious participant in Canada. Nevertheless, a safety breach and a bear market compelled the positioning offline. This finally led to an acquisition by CoinSetter, who helped enhance CaVirtEx’s safety posture earlier than subsuming the platform’s know-how and clients.
Kraken lands in Canada
In January 2016, Kraken purchased CoinSetter, and within the course of acquired CaVirtEx and its shoppers. The combination was seamless, as CaVirtEx workers moved into main roles in compliance, banking and even customer support. Kraken launched a small workplace in Halifax the place early crypto adopters started organizing occasions and internet hosting meetups.
On the time of the acquisition, CoinSetter/CaVirtEx supported 37 U.S. states in addition to the Canadian area with a sturdy providing for an early crypto buying and selling platform. One early CaVirtEx worker, who nonetheless works for Kraken, recalled the early days in Halifax fondly:
“We had enjoyable. It was a extremely enjoyable environment. It was additionally necessary for Halifax to have a leading edge fintech firm. It was an enormous profit to the folks primarily based right here to have publicity to Kraken. The general public there had beforehand had no publicity to and no understanding, actually, about monetary providers.”
Halifax grew to become a hotbed for fintech as Kraken grew and expanded in Nova Scotia. The truth is, Kraken succeeded in Canada with none promotion or promoting. Phrase of mouth about our cutting-edge operation echoed via on-line boards and in-person meetups. Early Canadian crypto adopters have been effectively conscious of the importance of the motion.
Our Canadian dedication
Regardless of regulatory headwinds and a number of bear markets, Kraken has stayed dedicated to Canadians over time. Our Pre-Registration Enterprise (PRU) with the Ontario Securities Fee indicators our dedication to enhanced investor safety steering.
We’ve lengthy understood the significance of creating practices that place our shoppers first and improve the long run potential of our business. “Kraken in Canada succeeded on account of being early within the house and having nice companions,” mentioned one other early worker. “We’re proud to have a robust repute with Canadians.”
As we speak, there are over 250 Canadian Krakenites and we’re well-known for our transparency, safety and nice customer support. We additionally supply 5 native spot pairs in CAD, one thing few crypto platforms can declare.
Kraken providers proceed to be out there in Canada and we stay dedicated to serving to Canadians obtain monetary freedom and inclusion. Now greater than ever, Kraken is right here to assist Canadians trying to harness the transformative energy of cryptocurrency and blockchain know-how.