Crypto platform Kraken offers customers an easier way to earn returns on their bitcoin holdings without selling or actively managing assets through decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols.
The Bitcoin Vault product within Kraken Earn allows users to earn rewards denominated in Bitcoin while maintaining exposure to the price of BTC. It is aimed at long-term owners 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 managed by Sentora, allocating customer assets to established onchain lending and yield protocols including Aave, Morpho and Tydro.
“Many bitcoin holders on Kraken have made it clear that they want simple, secure ways to make money with the bitcoin they already plan to hold,” John Zettler, GM of Payward Services and head of Kraken Earn Products, said in the statement. “Bitcoin Vault is built for that mentality,” he added.
The structure aims to remove much of the operational complexity typically associated with participating in DeFi, allowing customers to access yield opportunities directly through their Kraken accounts.
In crypto, vaults are pooled investment products that automatically stake users’ assets through DeFi protocols to generate returns. 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.
Crypto exchanges and DeFi companies have increasingly rolled out vault products as demand grows for passive return opportunities tied to long-term investments 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 return-generating strategies beyond spot trading. While centralized crypto lending products largely collapsed during the 2022 market downturn, exchanges and DeFi platforms have increasingly repositioned yield products around transparent onchain infrastructure and over-collateralized credit markets.
Kraken said the product is designed to appeal to both existing customers and bitcoin holders outside the platform, who may want to consolidate assets with a major exchange while generating additional returns. The company added that Bitcoin Vault onboarding is integrated directly into the Kraken and Krak apps.
The company’s broader DeFi Earn offering has surpassed $240 million in assets under management since launching in January, which it attributed to organic customer adoption rather than token incentives.
Bitcoin Vault is now available in eligible jurisdictions through Kraken Earn.
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