Crypto platform Kraken offers its customers an easier way to make their bitcoin profitable. holdings without actively selling or managing assets through decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols.
Kraken Earn’s Bitcoin Vault product allows users to earn bitcoin-denominated rewards while maintaining exposure to the BTC price. It is aimed at long-term holders looking for passive income opportunities tied to assets they already plan to hold over time, Kraken said in Wednesday’s press release.
The new offering is powered by DeFi infrastructure provider Veda and operated by Sentora, with client assets distributed across established on-chain lending and yield protocols including Aave, Morpho and Tydro.
“Many bitcoin holders on Kraken have made it clear that they want simple and secure ways to make money with the bitcoins they already plan to hold,” John Zettler, CEO of Payward Services and head of Kraken Earn Products, said in the release. “Bitcoin Vault is designed for this mindset,” he added.
The structure aims to remove much of the operational complexity typically associated with DeFi participation, allowing customers to access yield opportunities directly through their Kraken accounts.
In crypto, vaults are pooled investment products that automatically deploy user assets across DeFi protocols to generate yield. Rather than requiring users to manually move funds between lending, staking, or liquidity platforms, they bundle these strategies into a single product, often with automated risk management and rebalancing.
Cryptocurrency exchanges and DeFi companies are increasingly rolling out vault products as demand increases for passive yield opportunities tied to long-term holdings like bitcoin and ether.
Bitcoin Vault marks the latest step in Kraken’s broader push into on-chain financial products, as exchanges compete to attract users looking for yield-generating strategies beyond spot trading. As centralized crypto lending products largely collapsed during the 2022 market downturn, exchanges and DeFi platforms have increasingly repositioned yield products around transparent on-chain infrastructure and overcollateralized lending markets.
Kraken said the product is designed to appeal to both existing customers and bitcoin holders outside of the platform who may be looking to consolidate their assets with a large exchange while generating additional yield. The company added that the integration into Bitcoin Vault is directly integrated into the Kraken and Krak applications.
The company’s broader DeFi Earn offering has surpassed $240 million in assets under management since its launch in January, which it attributed to organic customer adoption rather than token incentives.
Bitcoin Vault is now available in eligible jurisdictions through Kraken Earn.
Learn more: Kraken parent Payward’s first quarter revenue rises despite crypto market crisis
