13 ms·
Kraken Wins Bank Charter Approval
- hd4 6y agoIt may help to amend the title to point out that Kraken is essentially a cryptocurrency exchange/trading platform.
- hrudham 6y agoNot related the article, but I cannot get off of Kraken's mailing list, and they won't stop spamming me. Clicking on the unsubscribe link in any of their emails has this quote in it: "Please note that this process will take 30 days to implement across our system". They they simply don't honour this, despite the 30 days in itself being ridiculous.
- gostsamo 6y agoGDPR if in EU (remove my data). Also, a filter to spam or even direct delete might prove useful.
- oh_sigh 6y agoCAN-SPAM covers this in the US. Not honoring an unsubscribe request can lead to fines up to $43,280
- microcolonel 6y agoIn Canada the equivalent is CASL and both CAN-SPAM and CASL predate the GDPR by at least a decade or two.
- gostsamo 6y agoThe important here is the location of the user, not the date of the legislation. Measuring ages of laws seems juvenile. But, fyi, check the history of GDPR, it is not born out of nothing.
- gjs278 6y agogdpr gives them 30 days
- MichaelBurge 6y agoClick the unsubscribe link once, and mark all future emails from them as spam and move on. They have no reason to act on your request, and this gives them one.
- Wintereise 6y agoYou can get that filter to auto forward them to SpamCop (https://www.spamcop.net/ https://www.spamcop.net/) too! More than likely will get their ESP's attention.
- hacker_newz 6y agoNo reason besides following the law?
- garmaine 6y agoThere is no law against marking unwanted emails as spam. That is, in fact, the entire point of spam filters.
- 1123581321 6y agoThey are saying that the law is a reason to honor unsubscribes. MichaelBurge said they have no reason to, presumably because he didn’t know the law around this.
- kraken-walter 6y agoHi there, I'm sorry to hear about this and would like to apologize for the inconvenience. Could you please share your public account ID? Please see this support article for more information on how to find it: https://support.kraken.com/hc/en-us/articles/360028555092-How-to-find-your-account-number-Public-Account-ID- https://support.kraken.com/hc/en-us/articles/360028555092-Ho... I'll then make sure you're being removed from the mailing list as soon as possible. Thank you in advance. Best, Walter from Kraken
- anm89 6y agoWhy not just unbreak your unsubscribe process and let them unsubscribe normally in a way that will work for more than the one person complaining loudly in public?
- garmaine 6y agoYou should not be asking customers to share their account ID in public on a different site.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- jeremyrwelch 6y agohrudham, Kraken's new VP Product here -- my apologies that you're having trouble removing this. This is a mistake if you are not being removed. I'm investigating now to a) confirm that unsubscribe requests are working and b) find a way to lower/remove that 30 day period.
- heliodor 6y agoYou should investigate who in your company decided upon the 30 days and be weary of what they're up to. 30 days is unheard of for an unsubscribe system. Usually it's not mentioned or it's 48 hours. Very very few websites claim they need thirty days, and it's ridiculous.
- jeremyrwelch 6y agoAgreed :D Working on the fix!
- jeremyrwelch 6y agoUPDATE: Thanks again for raising this issue hrudham. It seems there is indeed a bug in the current unsubscribe flow. This was not intentional behavior, and it will be corrected. As for "30 day" period, my initial review indicates this should take 24-48hrs max to be fully unsubscribed (based on how our email and account systems interact). Working on getting fixes for everything. Will update again once it's all corrected.
- BlueScreenDeath 6y agoAnd your filters are broken too?
- companyhen 6y agoMajority of HN hates to hear it, but crypto is the future. Onwards!
- seibelj 6y agoHN’s never ending hatred of crypto is so funny to me. On the one hand it’s “Disrupt incumbents! Software eats the world! Through the Internet all things can be made better!” But when it comes to crypto “No! We love our stodgy ancient corrupt banking system and the money laundering crooks that run them and extract ridiculous fees for terrible service!” Permanent “psyduck confused” look on my face.
- birdyrooster 6y agoI think it’s because if bitcoin continues this trend, we might not like who we have just enriched. Do you really want the new largest currency market to be dominated by a handful of families from one or two nations?
- nico_h 6y agoit’s because it only compounds the existing problems of the current banking system: more anonymity, not actually that decentralized, not less corrupt, still concentrated power. the only improvement is possibly fees.
- simias 6y ago10+ years on, billions of dollars poured into various coins and ICOs and still nothing to show for it. It's like an even nerdier Star Citizen.
- vmception 6y agoIts the strange higher standard put on crypto that’s oddest to me. Those ICO issuers have a great business model, haven’t cracked recurring revenue yet, but alot of revenue! There is also a large services sector, no different than the adtech sector or any other sector with questionable utility. I worked on many mobile apps that weren’t worth it for the company, and was praised for it. But crypto is the one that has to convince you of...... what? “There are alot of customers, go where the customers are - Except if it’s crypto, then I’ll just spend all my energy talking about unrelated crypto issues in a incoherent tirade.“
- mudlus 6y agoFunny this was like the day before this article about how banks have corrupted the governance of the world came out: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24535241 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24535241 I thought banks were the enemy of Bitcoin? Guess it's market cap is high enough that it too must be corrupted by the powers at be.
- simias 6y agoOnly some clueless cryptocurrency enthusiasts think that cryptocurrency is at odds with banking. Banks offer services that can't be replicated by cryptocurrencies and wouldn't really have a problem switching to them if necessary. You still need a bank to get a loan, you still need a bank to take care of your money if you don't want to be one hard drive failure away from losing access to the entirety of your funds. Banks and currencies are not the same thing. The funny part is that I've often seen crypto enthusiasts (including here on HN) claim that cryptocurrencies are the future and not as hard to use as people say, and then they go on to talk about their Coinbase provided Visa card how convenient it is. Good work guys, you've reinvented banks with extra steps.
- noxer 6y ago>You still need a bank to get a loan That is true today but it could change. DeFi is currently just hype and experiments but there is no reason why it would not mature in the next decade or two. > you still need a bank to take care of your money if you don't want to be one hard drive failure away from losing access to the entirety of your funds. That is just not true. Multi-sign with variable weights and quorum exists. Storage of the private key(s) also does not need to be digital at all. It's just a number often represented as string of chars and numbers or as mnemonic phrase usually just 24 words long. It is rather trivial to store multiple times in different places just make sure no one can find the full key or enough keys to sign a transaction.
- anm89 6y agoI think this will be true for the foreseeable future but is not true over the long term. Every one of the services a bank offers can be commoditized and offered as a service on a crypto based platform and over time new startups or existing crypto players will chip away at these pieces and build up an eco system. Existing banks could also integrate these services instead of competing with them. For the record i'm not particularly a crypto fan boy, I have a degree in economics, and I've worked in finance so I don't think I fall into your clueless crypto enthusiasts bucket.
- rahimnathwani 6y agoMore information about Wyoming's SPDI regulations here: http://wyomingbankingdivision.wyo.gov/home/areas-of-regulation/laws-and-regulation/special-purpose-depository-institution http://wyomingbankingdivision.wyo.gov/home/areas-of-regulati... Banks usually borrow short-term from depositors, lend/invest long-term, and make money due to (i) the upward sloping yield curve, and (ii) profitability pricing credit risk. If that's how you understand what banks are, then SPDIs seems less like banks (which borrow from depositors) than to safe deposit box operators (which provide a place where depositors can keep valuables they don't want disturbed). So what is Kraken getting from the SPDI designation? Access to bank payment networks like ACH etc.?
- User23 6y agoBanks don’t really borrow from depositors[1]. That is a great description from an authoritative source. The US system is substantially the same. Having a banking license has huge advantages, namely being able to create money out of thin air and borrow at extremely low rates from the central bank. I don’t know if a Wyoming SPDI has those privileges or not though. Reading through the description[2] it looks like they do though. [1] https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/quarterly-bulletin/2014/q1/money-creation-in-the-modern-economy https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/quarterly-bulletin/2014/q1/m... [2] http://wyomingbankingdivision.wyo.gov/home/areas-of-regulation/laws-and-regulation/special-purpose-depository-institution http://wyomingbankingdivision.wyo.gov/home/areas-of-regulati...
- rahimnathwani 6y agoFrom an article linked from [1]: "Broad money is made up of bank deposits — which are essentially IOUs from commercial banks to households and companies — and currency — mostly IOUs from the central bank.(4)(5) Of the two types of broad money, bank deposits make up the vast majority — 97% of the amount currently in circulation.(6) And in the modern economy, those bank deposits are mostly created by commercial banks themselves." The information you yourself linked says that 97% of broad money is made up of bank deposits, and that bank deposits are 'essentially IOUs from commercial banks to households'. This supports what I said: that bank deposits are loans from depositors to banks. A bank can create an unlimited amount of money by issuing a loan: through a simple journal entry, it can create: - a loan for $1 billion (owed by customer X) - a deposit account for customer X (containing $1 billion) But an SPDI can't do that, as it has to have liquid cash for the total amount among all deposit accounts.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- jeremyrwelch 6y agoVP Product at Kraken here. Have questions on the Kraken SPDI? Add them to this thread and I'll answer over the next few days. If you want to build the SPDI with us -- we're actively hiring for Engineering, Product, Design and more.
- seibelj 6y agoIf I get paid in crypto can I custody it with you and use it to pay bills, buy a house, etc.? Are you trying to make this like a real bank? My normal bank will cancel my account if I start wiring in large amounts of fiat that originated from a crypto exchange. Also, if I have a crypto business, can you be my crypto business banker? Thanks.
- jeremyrwelch 6y agoYes, all of those scenarios will be easier with what we are building.
- seibelj 6y agoThanks! When can I become a customer?
- jeremyrwelch 6y agoYou're welcome! You can sign-up for a standard Kraken account now, or wait until we announce more about the SPDI bank experience. We should have more details out before the end of the year.
- seibelj 6y agoI have a Kraken account - but I am a Poloniex engineer :) but I will be happy to use your banking services in the future! Amazing work. I don’t think most people outside of crypto (and especially HN) understand the value proposition for what you are providing. This is huge!
- giantg2 6y agoThis makes me want Kraken rum.
- adrr 6y agoSo no FDIC insurance on the accounts? That seems like a non starter. I don’t understand why Kraken didn’t just use brokered accounts like every other FI that doesn’t have a bank charter?
- garmaine 6y agoNo brokerage accounts have FDIC insurance.
- colechristensen 6y agoProbably no banks would touch them. The ability to transfer crypto around introduces huge amounts of regulatory risk with money laundering, etc.
- jakuboboza 6y agoI guess Wyoming did release the kraken ;).
- optimalsolver 6y agoI thought the whole point of crypto was to break with centralized financial services?
- wcoenen 6y agoKraken is an exchange with fiat/crypto currency pairs, they have to interface with both worlds by definition.
- optimalsolver 6y ago>they have to interface with both worlds by definition Not necessarily. See the existence of crypto-only exchanges like Binance. In fact, I think that's the default form of crypto market. Anyway, there's quite a leap between being a middleman for trades, and emulating a traditional bank with all its associated services. Considering the volatility of crypto currencies, plus the tendencies of crypto companies to go bust or simply disappear, what is the value of not just going with a regular bank?
- wcoenen 6y agoNote that I said "exchange with fiat/crypto currency pairs". An exchange can certainly be crypto-only, but that's not what Kraken does.
- kirbypineapple 6y agoBinance has fiat on-ramps and off-ramps, not sure where you get the idea that it's a "crypto only" exchange.
- PretzelPirate 6y agoThe point of crypto is to give people a choice.
- historyremade 6y agoDon't dance. Don't dance yet. The Federal Reverse not gonna to give you guys a reverse account and without that you would only have licence without any functionality.
- Yizahi 6y agoWasn't Kraken one of the exchanges involved in the laundering of USDT tokens, created by Bitfinex out of thin air? I wouldn't trust anyone involved with USDT with keeping safe cut paper, let alone money or securities.
- Bombthecat 6y agoNo they aren't, one of the real free ones. They don't have a set exchange rate. Which is based on buy / sell pressure, like bitcoin. I would argue, they dont trust ether either.
- billions 6y agoWhat do you trust then? Asset inflation is -25% YTD