The cryptocurrency market in Canada is heating up with lot of competition. There is a new addition to the prolific bitcoin business ecosystem in the form of Kraken. The San Francisco, USA based bitcoin exchange Kraken has entered Canada soon after it announced its partnership with the cryptocurrency risk management and payment processor Vogogo.
Keeping up with its name, Kraken has been gradually expanding its presence across the world to gain a significant piece of the global bitcoin market. In Canada, Kraken allows its users to exchange their bitcoin for Canadian dollars and vice versa. Customers can use Interac e-Transfer and electronic fund transfer (EFT) to convert their Canadian dollars to bitcoin.
Kraken has been busy from the past one year. It has expanded to Japan and United Kingdom during that time period. According to the CEO of Kraken – Jesse Powell, the company saw a lucrative market opportunity in Canada, which influenced the decision to enter into the market.
Vogogo is known for its proprietary risk management and specialized payment products for the cryptocurrency industry. It recently closed a $12.5 million fundraising round from a group of investors including Salman Partners, Beacon Securities Limited and Clarus Securities. Apart from the usual offerings, the company is also known for its Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti Money Laundering (AML) services.
By entering Canada, Kraken is in the right place to experiment and improve its services which can be later on expanded to its customers across the world. Canada provides a favourable environment for digital currency businesses, especially after the Canadian Senate declared that the regulations on bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies will not hinder the industry’s progress.
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Canadian bitcoin ecosystem is seeing many American companies entering the market, after the leading bitcoin exchanges CaVirtex and Vault of Satoshi shut shop earlier this year. CaVirtex was acquired by Coinsetter. Kraken is already a market leader for EUR-BTC trading pair at 4579 BTC per day trading volumes.