Kraken went live on July 13 with a new debit card for customers in the UK and the European Economic Area, letting cardholders spend directly from more than 600 supported crypto and fiat balances with near real-time conversion at the point of purchase. The card pays up to 2 percent cashback in bitcoin, euros, or pounds, settled weekly, with no Kraken transaction or ATM fees, and is accepted anywhere Mastercard is taken. In the UK it is issued by Monavate Limited under Financial Conduct Authority authorization for electronic money activities; in the EEA it is issued by UAB Monavate under the Bank of Lithuania. Kraken said cards for additional markets, including the United States, are coming, without giving a timeline.
The timing matters as much as the product. The launch lands within days of the close of the last MiCA transition window across the EEA, which tightened licensing requirements for any exchange sitting between crypto balances and everyday spending. Crypto debit cards used to be a loyalty perk bolted onto a trading account. They are becoming the primary proof point that an exchange can operate as a regulated, everyday-money business rather than purely a trading venue, a shift this publication has tracked as card networks race to own money that moves itself.
The reward structure is the tell. Kraken’s new card doubles the cashback rate of its earlier Krak card, moving from 1 percent to 2 percent, a pricing move that only makes economic sense if customer acquisition in crypto spending has gotten materially more competitive now that MiCA compliance is table stakes for every EEA entrant. “People shouldn’t have to worry about where their money is sitting before they spend it,” said Kamo Asatryan, Kraken’s global head of consumer. That framing signals Kraken’s real target is not crypto traders but the far larger pool of consumers who hold both crypto and cash and want one card that spends either without a manual conversion step first.
Source: Kraken
