Here’s what happened in crypto today
Today in crypto, Kraken has reportedly raised $500 million at a $15 billion valuation ahead of a potential public offering. In the UK, a trade association launched a tokenized deposits pilot with six major banks, including Barclays, HSBC and Lloyds. Meanwhile, BlackRock took early steps to file for a Bitcoin Premium Income ETF in the US.As IPO rumors swirl, Kraken secures $500M funding at $15B valuation: ReportKraken has reportedly raised $500 million at a $15 billion valuation, strengthening its financial position amid growing speculation that the cryptocurrency exchange is preparing for an initial public offering (IPO).The funding was first reported by Fortune, which cited a source close to the negotiations in a profile on co-CEO Arjun Sethi. The source claimed that Kraken closed the round earlier this month.When contacted by Cointelegraph for confirmation, a Kraken representative declined to comment.The raise and valuation are broadly in line with Cointelegraph’s reporting in July, which revealed that Kraken was seeking $500 million at a $15 billion valuation — a move widely interpreted as a step toward IPO readiness.While Kraken has not filed any regulatory paperwork for a public listing, several of its actions appear consistent with IPO preparation, including enhancing financial disclosures. However, the company has yet to submit an S-1 registration statement to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), a necessary step for any US public offering.Founded in 2011 and launched in 2013, Kraken is one of the industry’s oldest operating exchanges. It processed roughly $1.9 billion in trading volume over the past 24 hours, ranking among the top 15 global crypto exchanges, according to CoinMarketCap.UK Finance pilots tokenized sterling deposits with six major banksUK Finance, a trade association representing over 300 financial services firms in the United Kingdom, has launched a joint pilot project for tokenized sterling deposits (GBTD).The trade group began the pilot phase for the tokenized deposits project, which aims to provide a digital representation of traditional British pound commercial bank money, it announced on Friday.The pilot was launched in collaboration with six major banks operating in the UK, including Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, NatWest, Nationwide and Santander.UK Finance plans to run the pilot until mid-2026 and aims to explore benefits to customers, businesses and the UK economy, targeting greater control over payments, fraud prevention and more efficient settlement processes.Among the use cases, the GBTD project will test three main areas: online marketplace payments, remortgaging processes and wholesale bond settlement.According to Quant founder and CEO Gilbert Verdian, the project goes beyond improving payments and is about enabling new forms of programmable money that will “fundamentally transform how value is moved and managed.”BlackRock chases Bitcoin yield in latest ETF as a “sequel” to IBITAsset management giant BlackRock filed to register a Delaware trust company for its proposed Bitcoin Premium Income ETF on Thursday, signaling a push to broaden its Bitcoin offerings.Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas said BlackRock’s proposed product would sell covered call options on Bitcoin futures, collecting premiums to generate yield. The regular distributions would, however, trade away potential upside from investing in BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF, which mirrors Bitcoin’s (BTC) price movements. “This is a covered call Bitcoin strategy in order to give BTC some yield. This will be a ’33 Act spot product, sequel to the $87b $IBIT.”The new BlackRock product would complement its iShares Bitcoin ETF (IBIT), which has clocked over $60.7 billion in inflows since launching in January 2024 — by far the largest of its kind — with the Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC) coming in next at $12.3 billion.