Why the Next Profitable Crypto Exchange Won’t Be an Exchange. It’ll Be a Bank

Kraken, a leading exchange preparing to go public in the US, is pursuing a full European banking license in Lithuania. If granted, it would be the only crypto exchange software in the EU holding a full branding designation. This strategy mimics Revolut, which used a Lithuanian banking license in 2018 to transform from a basic currency exchange into an all-in-one digital bank with everyday current accounts, personal loans, stock trading, etc.

Lithuania has long been treated as the EU’s licensing venue for fintechs that want banking powers without waiting a decade. Under the Bank of Lithuania’s framework, Mano Bank, European Merchant bank, Fjord Bank, Saldo Bank, etc., are all specialized banks, while PayRay holds a full banking license.

Kraken doesn’t want to stop here, and that’s clear from co-CEO Arjun Sethi’s statements at the Money 20/20 Europe conference. Outlining a massive ten-year plan to accumulate global licenses, Sethi declared:

“The plan for the next 10 years is to get all of these licenses, either through buying an existing business or going de novo in each region and starting from scratch.” 

Any existing exchange or aspiring crypto exchange development project planning their trajectory must note that the Lithuanian application is one move in Kraken’s strategic sequence that already includes: 

• A MiCA authorization through the Central Bank of Ireland, unlocking passporting rights to offer crypto services across all 27 EU member states.
• A MiFID license through Cyprus, legally empowering them to offer traditional financial investments and derivatives to European clients.  
• Direct Federal Reserve payment-rail access in the US, secured in March 2026, making Kraken Financial the first-ever crypto firm granted a master account to settle USD transactions directly with the central bank.
• A VARA authorization in Dubai, May 2026, securing a compliant, heavily regulated foothold in the Gulf’s institutional financial hub.

It doesn’t seem like a licensing portfolio of crypto trading venues but of a bank being assembled in public, one regulator at a time. 

Why Does a Crypto Exchange Software Need a Banking License?

Because the economics of running a crypto exchange software without a banking license stopped making sense after July 1, 2026. 

The EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) declared the banking dependency as a compliance problem, so it didn’t remain an operational limitation from a third-party dependency. The MiCA moved into full enforcement across the bloc on July 1, imposing stricter obligations on how exchanges safeguard and segregate customer fiat. 

For the longest time, existing cryptocurrency exchanges have met those obligations by routing euro deposits and withdrawals through third-party banking partners. Under MiCA’s tightened regime, every one of those partner relationships is a point of regulatory exposure that the exchange doesn’t control.

Partner banks’ relationships have always been fragile since most correspondent banking relationships can be repriced, restricted, or withdrawn at short notice. Crypto firms have lived through exactly that repeatedly. A crypto exchange software that depends on a banking partner bank for fiat rails inherits the following: 

• their settlement timelines
• their risk appetite
• their willingness to keep serving crypto at all

A banking license engineers the banks out of the crypto exchange development stack entirely, converting the most fragile dependency into an owned, revenue-earning asset. 

Deposits earn continuously, whereas trades earn once. This is the quiet center of the story that anyone planning crypto exchange development must learn. A trading fee is captured at the moment of execution and never again, whereas a customer deposit, held directly under a banking license, generates value continuously. It generates revenue through the float, settlement control, and every euro-denominated product the license permits on top of it, including accounts, payments, custody, lending, etc. 

Kraken is among the top 6 EU crypto venues in terms of spot and perpetual liquidity, according to the DefiLlama dashboards. Owning the deposit rails beneath that liquidity is how the market-share lead becomes a durable business.

“Exchanges are chasing deposit rails, not just fees, because whoever holds the deposit has more durable economics than whoever facilitates the transaction.”

Also Read>>> How White Label Crypto Exchanges Are Becoming the Fastest Path to MiCA Authorization Before July 2026 

What Kraken’s Banking Bid Means If You Are Planning Crypto Exchange Development?

If you are a founder or CTO scoping an exchange build right now, the Kraken news changes the question you should be asking your crypto exchange development partner. 

It’s no more “can you build me a crypto trading platform” but “can you build me an exchange platform whose architecture leaves the banking path open?”

The uncomfortable truth is that most white label crypto exchanges and custom-built architectures close that path on day one. 

These are the three choices that close the gates for banking on day-1:

• The ledger: 

Regulators who grant banking powers expect a double-entry ledger with clean segregation between customer funds and operating funds, auditable from inception. A crypto exchange software that launches on a single-balance-table design cannot retrofit this. They can only rebuild their entire order book module and even the following paths..

• The fund flows: 

If you dump all customer funds into one shared bank account without per-client tracking, you cannot easily answer regulatory questions. Generating a compliance report turns into a messy, manual excavation of old data rather than a simple database search.

• The fiat integration layer

Exchanges that lock their core crypto exchange software directly into a single payment provider will inherit that provider’s limitations forever. The alternative is to decouple the fiat system by building a flexible orchestration layer that acts as a smart router for money. Kraken’s entire design philosophy is built around escaping single-bank vulnerabilities this way.

“For anyone building a crypto exchange software today, ledger architecture and fund-segregation design decide whether the banking path stays open later or closes permanently.”

If the founders or operators get these three right at the crypto exchange decision stage, they’ll have a clear and open upgrade path:

Crypto exchange development today, EMI license tomorrow, and banking license when scale justifies.  

If the exchange founders get these wrong, the only route to Kraken’s position will be a ground-up rebuild at ten times the cost.

The Banking-Readiness Checklist For Crypto Exchange Development

If you want to ride the same path Kraken is doing right now, these are the seven questions to put to any crypto exchange development partner before you sign.

1. Ledger design: 

Is the core a double-entry ledger with hard segregation of client and operating funds, auditable from day one?

2. Safeguarding compliance: 

Can the platform produce MiCA-grade client-fund safeguarding and segregation reports natively, not as a bolt-on?

3. Fiat rail abstraction: 

Are payment providers integrated behind an orchestration layer that can be swapped or replaced by your own rails under a future license?

4. Custody model: 

Does the custody architecture (MPC or multi-sig, hot/cold policy) meet the standard a banking regulator will apply, not just an exchange regulator?

5. Licensing roadmap fit: 

Does the crypto exchange architecture map to a staged licensing path in your target jurisdictions?

VASP/CASP registration now, EMI next, specialized banking license later 

6. Deposit product readiness: 

Can the platform support interest-bearing accounts, payments, and cards on the same ledger when a license permits them?

7. Jurisdiction sequencing: 

Is there a plan for which regulator comes first, and does the entity structure support passporting the way Lithuania passports into the EEA?

Build a Crypto Exchange Software That Can Become a Bank

Kraken’s banking bid is the clearest signal yet of where exchange economics are heading. It validates a decision that has to be made at the crypto exchange architecture stage, not the licensing stage.

Antier builds cryptocurrency exchanges the way Kraken is assembling its stack: banking-ready from the ledger up. Our crypto exchange software ships with the following: 

• Double-entry fund segregation
• MiCA- and VARA-aligned safeguarding workflows
• Abstracted fiat rail orchestration
• Institutional custody 

So, the crypto exchange software platform you launch with Antier now is the platform a banking regulator can easily approve later.

Talk to our crypto exchange development consultants about a banking-ready crypto exchange software build and see how the architecture decisions you make in week one determine which licenses you can hold in year five.