Fed's crypto shift: Kraken gets master account, pro-crypto chair possible

Recent moves at the Federal Reserve mark a shift toward mainstreaming digital assets. Kraken announced that its Wyoming-chartered bank, Kraken Financial, received a Federal Reserve master account, making it the first digital asset bank in US history to gain direct access to the Fed’s payment infrastructure.

Kraken co-CEO Arjun Sethi said, "With a Federal Reserve master account, we can operate not as a peripheral participant in the US banking system, but as a directly connected financial institution." A Fed master account gives institutions dollars held directly within the Federal Reserve system — widely seen as the safest form of money.

Aaron Brogan of Brogan Law described those dollars as "the intrinsic architecture of the United States monetary system, which can always just make more of them." Access can improve the reliability and efficiency of moving fiat funds into and out of digital-asset markets, but the Fed has traditionally applied scrutiny when granting accounts.

United States, Wyoming

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