Kraken Works on NFT Marketplace, Will Enable Collateralizing NFTs

The CEO and founder of the veteran US crypto exchange – Jesse Powell – explained that the company is currently developing an NFT marketplace. However, he said it will have new features, including allowing customers to use their digital collection as collateral to borrow funds against.

Powell outlined the company’s plans in a recent interview with Bloomberg, indicating that 2021 will go down in history as the year of non-fungible tokens.
Indeed the craze for such collections exploded well outside of the cryptocurrency industry, with musicians, sportspeople, businesses, and even politicians issuing digital forms of art.
The skyrocketing demand led to countless crypto companies developing NFT marketplaces, and Kraken aims to be the next in line. However, Powell asserted that it will be more than just a platform for buying, selling, or holding digital art.

“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.”

Kraken’s CEO also expects NFTs to outgrow its current phase of “speculation” in the next few years, saying, “phase two is buying art and supporting artists, phase three is going to be functional uses of NFTs.”
Powell also touched upon the recent listing of the popular memecoin Shiba Inu onto Kraken. He noted that such additions are possible after enhanced demand from users or if someone as influential as Elon Musk starts tweeting about it, referring to his affection for Dogecoin.

“There’s not incredibly interesting new technology there or anything; it’s just largely community-driven interest. It’s basically a memecoin that has the community’s attention, and sometimes you have to just list those.” – he concluded.