Kraken, a leading crypto trading platform based in San Francisco, United States, has confirmed the onboarding of a new head of operations in the United Kingdom. The current head, Blair Halliday, has held the position for almost a year and will be replaced by Bivu Das, the former Head of Operations Strategy and Scaling at the Starling Bank and also the founder of Unblock, a Web3 onboarding infrastructure provider.
Das’ LinkedIn profile confirmed that he was appointed as the new Kraken UK head earlier this week. Interestingly, Das refers to his appointment as the “next chapter” for the firm and added that he will be responsible for managing 275 employees and a significant client base, according to a report from Bloomberg
Moreover, Das will be required to manage the firm’s 50% of GBP spot trading volume in crypto. It is crucial to note that Kraken is the largest crypto services provider in British pounds. The new utive will also be responsible for maintaining the exchange’s regulatory, political, and commercial relationships as it continues to expand its presence in the UK.
Interestingly, this change in leadership at Kraken comes at a time when other exchanges are facing regulatory troubles in the UK while trying to promote and advertise their services
Another important announcement that came from Kraken was that it was suspending trades, deposits, and withdrawals for Tether USD (USDT), Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC), and other reserve-backed assets in Canada. This shocked the entire digital asset community, as support for other cryptocurrencies like DAI (DAI), Wrapped Ether (WET) and Wrapped Axelar (WAXL) would also be suspended
A spokesperson revealed, “We constantly monitor the assets on our platform to ensure we are meeting the highest compliance standards in the crypto industry,” while adding:
“In accordance with recent Canadian regulatory changes and following extensive consultation with the CSA and OSC, we today notified our clients that we will soon be suspending trading for USDT, DAI, WBTC, WETH, and WAXL.”
As reported earlier by Bitnation, Kraken is also set to debut trading services for stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the UK and the United States by 2024.
