Quick Facts:
- ➡️ Kraken’s Krak Mastercard launch in the EU and UK underscores how regulated exchanges are pushing crypto beyond trading into real-world payments and merchant acceptance.
- ➡️ Krak offers 1% cashback on every purchase and offers access to over 400 currencies across 160 countries.
- ➡️ Best Wallet targets 40% wallet market share by 2026, pairing Fireblocks MPC security, presale access, and a planned ‘Best Card’ to challenge exchange-centric debit models.
- ➡️ The Best Wallet Token ($BEST) presale has raised over $17.5M so far, and it’s set to end in just two days. Not much time left to get in.
Kraken has rolled out its Krak Mastercard debit app across the EU and UK, letting you spend multiple crypto assets in real time anywhere Mastercard is accepted.
The card offers a 1% cashback on every spend and allows you to spend 400+ currencies with 110+ merchants across 160 countries.
Kraken posted the official news on X, announcing several upcoming features, like the 10% flexible APY marked with a ‘coming soon’ tag.
Kraken’s move is big. Instead of shuffling funds between exchanges and banks, you can now tap-to-pay in fiat while Kraken handles instant crypto conversion in the background.
That shift matters. For years, crypto usage has been dominated by trading, yield strategies, and speculative NFTs. Everyday payments stayed stuck in the ‘coming soon’ phase, limited by clunky cards, latency issues, and regulatory gray zones.
Kraken shows that regulated exchanges are ready to compete directly with banks on payments and user experience.
It also raises a bigger question: if exchanges are becoming banks, what happens to wallets?
That’s where Best Wallet is trying to position itself. The team has hinted at a ‘Best Card’ product on its roadmap, aiming to pair a non-custodial, Fireblocks-powered mobile wallet with debit-style spending and curated token access.
If you want to support the project, Best Wallet Token ($BEST) is available in presale today.
Crypto Debit Cards Signal the Next Payment Rail Battle
Kraken’s launch lands in a crowded but still experimental field.
Binance, Crypto.com, and Coinbase have all tested card programs, but most rely on a single-asset funding model or slow top-ups that feel closer to prepaid cards than native digital money. Few deliver true multi-asset, real-time spending tied into a broader Web3 stack.
The direction of travel is clear: users want to hold volatile assets like $BTC, $ETH, or stablecoins, then spend seamlessly in fiat without managing FX, gas, or bridge risks.
That means whoever owns the ‘default spend’ experience – exchange app, neobank, or wallet – controls a powerful on-ramp to the rest of the ecosystem, from staking to NFTs.
Wallets such as MetaMask, Trust Wallet, and Phantom are experimenting with card integrations, yet most still feel like developer tools with payment features bolted on top, not true consumer banking replacements.
The goal is to fuse the simplicity of a neobank app with the composability of DeFi – so your wallet + card becomes your main financial hub, not just a sidecar to a centralized exchange.
Read our full Best Wallet review here.
Why Best Wallet’s “Best Card” Bet Stands Out
Where many wallets focus on a single pain point – like cheaper swaps or NFT galleries – Best Wallet is going after the full stack: custody, discovery, trading, and eventually payments.
The project is aiming for 40% of the crypto wallet market by the end of 2026, positioning itself as the easiest, safest option with the broadest benefits.
Technically, the platform leans on Fireblocks’ MPC-CMP infrastructure for its non-custodial wallet, targeting institutional-grade key management in a mobile-first app.
That means private keys are never stored in one place, reducing single points of failure while still letting you manage multi-wallet portfolios and thousands of tokens from a single interface.
The team is also building an Upcoming Tokens portal for vetted presales and early-stage launches, plus a Rubic-powered DEX aggregator routing orders over 330 DEXs, and 30 cross-chain bridges.
In practice, that could let you discover a new token, buy into its presale, then later spend profits through a future Best Card – without leaving the Best Wallet ecosystem.
The Best Wallet Token ($BEST) presale has already raised over $17.5M, with $BEST currently priced at $0.026005.
The long-term perspective is tempting to say the least.
In terms of raw profit, we’re talking about a 1-year ROI of 2,284% and a 5-year one of 3,053% or higher.
To get ahead of that curve, you can explore the ecosystem now and, if it fits your thesis, read our guide on how to buy $BEST today. The presale is set to end in two days, so the opportunity window is nearly closed.
Purchase your $BEST on the official presale page now.
This isn’t financial advice. DYOR before investing.
Authored by Bogdan Patru, Bitcoinist: https://bitcoinist.com/kraken-launches-crypto-card-for-eu-a-best-wallet-could-follow
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