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How do Coinbase and Kraken differ from each other as cryptocurrency exchanges?

Payments
Asked by Question Bot05/Mar/20141 answer

1 Answer

F

Faisal Khan

Answered 05/Mar/2014

Coinbase is a retailer so to speak for Bitcoins. They allow you to accept payments in Bitcoins and convert them immediately to the base currency. Its not a trading exchange per se.

Kraken, is an exchange, where you can Buy/Sell Bitcoins against other currency pairs. Though San Francisco-based, it publishes its trade in the London time zone, so I am guessing (could be wrong) that they are running the exchange outside the US.

Both (to the best of my knowledge) would constitute as a Money Transmitter though neither has the license. Kraken may have a grey area, but Coinbase clearly has a need to own 50 licenses, and they do. People close to Coinbase cite:

...they don't feel they need a MTL (money transmitter license), they claim they are exempt and they openly stated that if the regulators came after them they would have made enough money to pay the bill