Kraken to launch agentic trading as crypto exchanges evolve beyond crypto
Kraken is preparing to relaunch its app with brokered trading at its core, a development that could mark the next big competitive battleground for cryptocurrency exchanges, the company told CNBC exclusively.
Representative trading is when AI representatives independently make trading decisions, execute transactions, and potentially manage portfolios based on human input. Unlike traditional automated systems that follow fixed rules, mediated platforms can evaluate multiple variables, learn from new information, and achieve human-directed goals within set parameters.
Kraken said its platform will give users access to agents who can constantly monitor markets, identify investment opportunities and execute trades in real time. The launch reflects a broader shift towards native financial products based on artificial intelligence, as large language models and autonomous systems reshape how investors interact with markets.
“AI will help ordinary people react to market conditions in the same way that our most active traders react. Even in down markets, we see our professional traders being extremely active, engaging with the platform, continuing to trade – and it’s important that customers, who are more ordinary people, have the same ability and are as well informed as professional traders,” said Kamo Asatryan, chief data officer at Kraken.
This vision reflects a structural change similar to the rise of mobile trading or algorithmic investing. Making financial services a mobile experience and giving people trading apps may have given them access, but it hasn’t enabled everyone to become confident, successful investors. Kraken believes that AI can close this gap by bringing all its customers closer to the experience and support that professional investors have always had.
The app’s onboarding experience uses artificial intelligence to learn users’ goals, risk tolerance, financing preferences, and financial profile in one fluid flow. Based on this information, AI creates a draft portfolio that users can review, adjust and approve, while also providing explanations behind its recommendations.
Once invested, users receive AI-curated insights, portfolio-related news, and proactive recommendations such as identifying opportunities to optimize idle cash. The platform aims to use artificial intelligence to adapt both the conversations and the application interface over time.
“Talking to Kraken should be like talking to your knowledgeable best friend who knows a lot about finance but also knows a lot about you, knows your goals, knows what you care about and can help you navigate all these different options, different assets, products, markets, can really help you achieve your goals without having to be an expert, professional trader,” Asatryan said.
This is also part of a broader transformation in which AI is becoming part of the underlying infrastructure rather than a feature, and where key relationships are increasingly shifting from human users to intermediaries who manage their capital. Companies that successfully integrate autonomous trading capabilities can gain advantages in engagement, trading activity and retention.
Asatryan said the opportunity to discuss investment opportunities with AI “will unlock a lot of access and interaction from ordinary people.” “Traditionally this has been the specialty of professional traders and all the indicators, API usage and high-frequency trading activities they do. But in this new world, there is an opportunity for ordinary people to become high-frequency traders and do it using plain English, just by talking to their well-informed best friend.”
Kraken joins a broader industry push towards AI-powered crypto services (exchange rivals) coinbase And Gemini For example, during a prolonged bear market in crypto asset prices, they recently introduced AI-powered trading and developer tools; This is often a time for the industry’s builders to put their heads down and focus on innovation.
Asatryan argued that the growing role of AI in crypto is not just the latest fad in a bear market but represents a “real growth opportunity.”
“Traditionally, exchanges have had trouble in bear markets because most of their customers have had trouble in bear markets,” he said. “[They] Engage with these exchanges due to FOMO. … They buy at the peak, sell when prices fall, and move on to the decline. What we see on our platform [traders] “They can take advantage of any price movement and continue to participate in different market cycles.”
Kraken is one of the oldest crypto exchanges, founded in 2011. Asatryan said the core user base consists of institutions, trading firms, professional traders and active leveraged traders. Retail users have likely been trading crypto for many years.
He also talked about a new group of customers that Kraken “plans to bring online” as it “evolves beyond an exchange” and “aims to build a full-spectrum financial services platform to cover payments, banking, lending and more.”
“These are areas that have historically been untouched by crypto, but with stablecoins and tokenized assets, there is much more reach and capability, use cases and benefits beyond exchanges,” Asatryan said. “AI will make all of this super accessible to everyone. This will happen in the future.”
