Kraken, a San Francisco-based digital currency exchange, has announced the acquisition of the Chicago-based award-winning wallet funding service Glidera. The terms of the deal has not been disclosed.
Launched in 2015, Glidera has quickly grown to integrate with 10 of the top bitcoin wallets including Airbitz, Copay, Mycelium and Multibit, with many more in the development pipeline. It is the world’s first non-custodial buying and selling service for wallets.
Kraken kicked off this year with the acquisition of major exchanges Coinsetter and Cavirtex in January, followed by acquisition of Dutch exchange CleverCoin in June.
“This acquisition rounds out a fantastic year for Kraken,” said Jesse Powell, CEO of Kraken. “We’ve seen incredible growth throughout 2016 across all areas of our business. We’re looking forward to an even better 2017 with this acquisition and our new ‘Kraken Direct’ service playing a key role.”
Kraken said that the acquisition of Glidera marks the brand’s first step towards a global ecosystem of complementary services clustered around its core exchange business. With this acquisition, clients will soon be able to experience direct one-click buying and selling of bitcoin and other digital assets via convenient payments like ACH transfers, it said.
According to the official release, Glidera’s service is being expanded to support most US states (most of the US states already supported by Kraken) effective immediately. Future benefits as the integration proceeds include the convenience of ACH bank payments to fund trading accounts (currently offered through Glidera for wallet funding) and the ability to access both the wallet funding service and the exchange service via a single account.
In addition, Glidera will be rebranded under the name ‘Kraken Direct’, the release said. Glidera’s funding service, currently available only in the US, will be expanded to support many of the countries and national currencies worldwide now serviced by Kraken, including Europe (EUR), Japan (JPY), Canada (CAD), and the UK (GBP). Glidera will add wallet funding support for popular cryptocurrencies that Kraken currently offers for exchange, such as Ethereum and Zcash. Moreover, Glidera clients will have access to the same 24/7/365 support and live chat currently available to Kraken exchange clients.
“We’re thoroughly excited to merge with Kraken and bring even more value to our clients and partners. Kraken has built an incredible global platform and a talented team who share our view that partnerships are key to building the digital asset ecosystem”, Dave Ripley, co-founder and CEO of Glidera, said.
