US crypto exchange Kraken is working on a new offering which would allow users to borrow funds against their non-fungible tokens (NFTs). This is Jesse Powell, the company’s CEO.
“If you deposit a CryptoPunk on Kraken, we want to be able to reflect the value of that in your account. And if you want to borrow funds against that,” Powell said, explaining the exchange was developing a system that would determine the liquidation value of their users’ NFTs.
Kraken’s up and coming NFT marketplace will also provide custodial services to its users.
The latest development comes as a number of crypto exchanges are ramping up their efforts to accommodate more business from NFT owners and to integrate new NFT-oriented features into their platforms.
At the start of the year, Powell said that Kraken has “seen a tremendous amount of activity” around NFTs related to various metaverses.
“We think this is going to get a bigger and bigger thing, and we want to be ahead of that,” the chief executive said adding, “We’re working on an NFT platform right now to give investors exposure to the burgeoning NFT market.”
At the same time, rival exchange Coinbase has been developing its own NFT platform. The platform has already had 1 million people registering for participation as of October 14. This happened just 24 hours after the company launched a waitlist for those interested in a peer-to-peer marketplace enabling users to mint, buy, showcase, and discover such tokens.
Crypto exchanges hope to capture a share of the lucrative market by launching their own marketplaces. They also hope to compete against established NFT players such as the OpenSea marketplace, which says it has more than 600,000 users and provides access to more than 80m NFTs.
