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Kraken, one of the world’s leading cryptocurrency exchanges, has announced its plans to launch its own blockchain network, dubbed “Ink,” by early 2025.
The San Francisco-based company is positioning this new initiative as a solution to make decentralized finance (DeFi) more accessible to both retail and institutional users.
The move comes as part of a broader trend among cryptocurrency exchanges like Coinbase, which launched its own blockchain Base in 2023.
The proposed Ink blockchain
Ink will be an Ethereum layer-2 (L2) scaling solution, a network designed to enhance Ethereum’s capabilities by offering faster and cheaper transactions.
Similar to Coinbase’s Base, Ink will tap into Optimism’s developer stack, leveraging cutting-edge technology to support decentralized applications (dApps).
Kraken’s blockchain will support a wide range of DeFi protocols, such as decentralized exchanges (DEXs) and lending platforms, while simplifying the user experience through its wallet app.
The founder of Ink, Andrew Koller, emphasized Kraken’s focus on making DeFi user-friendly, noting that the interface is designed to feel familiar to users of traditional financial applications. “It’s a very easy-to-use, Apple-esque experience,” Koller explained in an interview with Bloomberg.
Kraken aims to merge centralized and decentralized ecosystems, allowing users to engage seamlessly in trustless financial activities on-chain.
One standout feature of Ink is that Kraken does not plan to issue its own token—a marked departure from the strategies employed by other exchanges. Instead, Kraken is concentrating on expanding its services and integrating them into the platform, providing an all-in-one ecosystem for its users.
This decision contrasts with the remarkable growth experienced by exchange tokens, like Binance’s BNB, which have become central to their respective platforms’ ecosystems.
Ink’s developer testnet scheduled for late 2024
At launch, Kraken expects to feature more than a dozen dApps on Ink, including popular DeFi services like Aave and decentralized exchange Aerodrome, which have already seen success on Coinbase’s Base.
In addition to DeFi trading and lending, Kraken plans to expand Ink’s offerings to include real-world asset tokenization and advanced lending applications, underscoring its ambitions to grow the blockchain’s use cases.
A developer testnet is scheduled for late 2024, allowing builders to begin experimenting with Ink before the mainnet’s launch. Kraken will initially manage transaction sequencing on the network but plans to move toward full decentralization over time.
Notably, Kraken’s move to launch its own blockchain reflects its bullish outlook on the future of the US cryptocurrency landscape, particularly in the aftermath of the 2024 US elections. The exchange’s founder, Jesse Powell, made headlines earlier this year with a $1 million donation in crypto to Donald Trump’s campaign, underscoring Kraken’s involvement in both the financial and political spheres.
As Kraken steps into the blockchain space with Ink, the company aims to simplify DeFi, making it more accessible to a wider audience while expanding its offerings in the burgeoning decentralized finance sector.
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