Kraken received a crypto operating license in UAE; will it grow competition among crypto exchanges in the Middle East?

This part of the globe has a huge potential yet untapped market from crypto exchange services availability point of view where Kraken found opportunity

Kraken is a cryptocurrency exchange and bank based in the United States founded in 2011 has recently received an operating license for handling virtual assets transactions and other operations in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). In a recent interview, Managing Director of cryptocurrency exchange company, Curtis Ting was asked about the expectations of the kind of volume Kraken has to see from the region. 

In response Curtis said that he thinks that this is really an exciting time for a specific part of this region in the world. While mentioning its trading volume Kraken director said that according to him right now somewhere around six to seven percent of total global currency trading volume in terms of cryptocurrencies is happening from the Gulf region. 

He further said by recalling that from recent figures, the United Arab Emirates has been second only after Turkey in this region in terms of crypto trading volume. He thinks that there’s about a $25 billion US dollar worth volume occurring in the UAE on an annual basis and which is quite insignificant. He believes that this indicates the fact that this particular region is ready to embrace crypto and they have been waiting for a long time for a regulated offering like Kraken. 

To operate as a virtual assets service provider platform in the region, Kraken needed to gain a license from the Abu Dhabi Global Market or ADGM, which acts as a regulator based in Abu Dhabi. Regarding the regulator, he passed on the statement that they are incredibly excited to manage to set up for their operations right straight in the ADGM to operate as a platform providing virtual asset services and finally offers trading pairs in dirham for investors in the region. 

Other than Kraken, world’s biggest crypto exchange company Binance has also got the license two weeks ago in principle for operating in the region.