The global crypto exchanges industry continues to consolidate as some smaller players bow out and the big players try to gobble up as much as they can of the rest. As part of this trend, Kraken has now taken over the Australian platform Bit Trade in a bit to strengthen its foothold in the Asia Pacific region as well as grow its share of the OTC trading market.
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Kraken Acquires Bit Trade
San Francisco-based digital assets exchange Kraken has announced that it has acquired Bit Trade, considered to be the longest-running crypto service in Australia. The two sides have not publicly revealed how much money was involved in the deal as of yet. As part of the acquisition the entire Australian team, led by Jonathon Miller, will join the American company, with Miller becoming Managing Director for Kraken in Australia.
“With this acquisition, Kraken will focus on being the premier crypto service in Australia with the best AUD liquidity, trading experience, and support for both institutional and retail clients,” the company stated. “It also deepens our overall presence in the APAC region, and further bolsters our industry-leading OTC trading operation.”
The combined service now offers traders a multi-exchange aggregator that combines several trading platforms into a single interface, as well as one of the largest OTC desks in Australia, where bigger players can trade in large volumes without moving markets.
Founded in 2013, Bit Trade was a founding member of the Australian Digital Commerce Association – the industry body that represents Australian businesses and organizations that participate in the digital economy through blockchain technology. Besides trading it also offered services which allowed users to pay bills to over 19,000 businesses with any cryptocurrency available on the platform.
Kraken is one of the most popular U.S.-based cryptocurrency companies as it operates a multi-asset exchange with $50 Billion USD traded in 2019 and over 4 million clients from 190 countries. It has been aggressively pursuing the acquisition of other crypto businesses around the world for the past few years. In December 2019, it took over one of the most recognized OTC desks in crypto, Circle Trade, to provide personal, “white-glove” service to new global trading partners, particularly in Asia. In February it acquired Crypto Facilities, a British digital asset trading platform and index provider in a “nine-figure deal.” Kraken had previously acquired bitcoin exchanges Coinsetter, Cavirtex and Clevercoin, as well as Glidera, a wallet funding business, and Cryptowatch, a trading and portfolio tracking platform.
What do you think about Kraken acquiring Australian crypto platform Bit Trade? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
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