Krak Launches Multi-Asset Debit Card for U.S. Customers, Built to Reward Spending as Americans Look to Escape Debt Cycle

CHEYENNE, Wyo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 18, 2026--

Krak, the global money app from the makers of the multi-asset trading platform Kraken, is bringing its innovative multi-asset debit card to U.S. customers, the next phase in a global effort to make any currency or asset as spendable as cash. The Krak Card rewards everyday spending with up to 2% cashback paid as US dollars, or in Bitcoin if the customer chooses, while allowing customers to store money across more than 600 currencies and assets, and spend any of them at checkout. It is available now, both as a physical and virtual card, to anyone who downloads the Krak app.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260817922844/en/

Most Americans feel they're financially falling behind

Krak built the card around a problem it could measure: a growing disconnect between where Americans stand financially and the products designed to serve them. In a national survey of over 2,000 U.S. adults it commissioned*, Krak found that most people want the money they already have and are already spending to work harder for them, without adding to their debt load.

Key findings include:

For Americans trying to leave the credit cycle, and the many who were never given access to it, that viable alternative has been missing.

"People have lost trust in how the financial system treats them, in the rates they're paid, the fees they're charged, and how rewards actually work. They're right to. For decades the system has run on a quiet subsidy: ordinary people's deposits, fees, and spending fund the returns, and those returns rarely flow back to them. The old deal was simple: if you wanted rewards, you had to take on debt to get them. That deal is over. The Krak Card turns whatever people choose to hold into money they can spend anywhere, and pays the value back as cash, not points," said Arjun Sethi, Co-CEO of Payward.

The debit card built for spending every asset customers hold

In a crowded card market, Krak Card redefines what a debit card can do by turning a customer's entire portfolio into practical spending power. Instead of being tied to a single asset class, customers have the flexibility to store, spend and grow value in over 600 supported assets, including fiat currencies and cryptoassets. At checkout, Krak instantly converts a pre-determined list of assets into US dollars in real time to settle the purchase, allowing customers to keep their wealth in the form they choose while spending anywhere Visa is accepted worldwide.

A single purchase can even draw from multiple balances. For example, a $100 transaction could use $80 from a U.S. dollar balance and $20 from Euros, Pounds, or even a cryptoasset like Bitcoin or Ethereum, with each asset converted instantly at the point of sale. Customers decide which assets are prioritized, which remain off limits, and retain full control over how they spend and manage their wealth. Because customers set the priority order, they can opt to spend U.S. dollars first and leave crypto holdings untouched, deciding for themselves whether a cryptoasset will be converted and if a taxable event occurs. Reflecting demand for this flexibility, more than half of adults surveyed (53%) said they would value the ability to hold money across hundreds of assets and spend it instantly.

Krak rewards model reflects the same customer-first approach. The Krak Card pays up to 2% cashback, with rates tiered based on the value of assets a customer holds, and it pays out as money rather than points. Rewards arrive in the customer’s account as U.S. dollars the instant the transaction settles, with the option to receive them in Bitcoin instead, and with no redemption process or complex conditions for the customer to decode. This approach also aligns with what people say they want: 57% of adults surveyed said they would rather receive cash deposited directly into their account than points, gift cards, or travel miles.

Built to help customers get ahead, not just get by

Debit cards have long carried a ceiling in people's minds. Nearly a quarter of adults associate them with getting by rather than getting ahead. Krak is designed to move past that. Rewards come from real spending, money moves on bank-grade infrastructure, and value can be stored in whatever form a customer chooses right up to the moment they spend it.

Delivering that in the U.S. meant building with partners who could match the ambition. The Krak Card is issued by Lead Bank, pursuant to a license from Visa, so it is accepted at the millions of merchants worldwide that already take Visa. Stripe Issuing powers the Krak Card for U.S. customers with similar speed and reliability as Krak's international rollout. Together those partnerships turn diversified balances into practical purchasing power, pairing the flexibility of digital assets with the familiarity of a card people already know how to use.

The approach is already working across other markets. Over 135,000 multi-asset Krak cards have been issued across the UK and EEA since December 2025, and the U.S. launch brings that same experience to American customers.

The Krak Card is the foundation of Krak's U.S. offering, which also includes instant global peer-to-peer payments, the ability to earn on the assets customers hold, and Krak Concierge, which turns hotel and travel bookings into boosted cashback inside the Krak app. In the months ahead, Krak will continue bolstering its offering, bringing its multi-asset card and its customer-first rewards model to more markets worldwide, and deepen its account features to meet a wider range of financial needs.

*Survey commissioned by Krak and conducted by Morning Consult among 2,001 U.S. adults from July 2 to 5, 2026, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

About Kraken:

Founded in 2011, Kraken is one of the world’s longest-standing and most secure crypto platforms globally. Kraken clients trade more than 600 digital assets, traditional assets such as US futures and US-listed stocks and ETFs, and 6 different national currencies, including GBP, EUR, USD, CAD, CHF, and AUD. Trusted by millions of institutions, professional traders and consumers, Kraken is one of the fastest, most liquid and performant trading platforms available.

Kraken’s suite of products and services includes the Kraken App, Kraken Pro, the Krak App, Kraken Institutional, Kraken’s onchain offerings and the Ninja Trader retail trading platform. Across these offerings, clients can buy, sell, stake, earn rewards, send and receive assets, custody holdings, and access advanced trading, derivatives, and portfolio management tools.

Kraken has set the industry standard for transparency and client trust, and it was the first crypto platform to conduct Proof of Reserves. It complies with regulations and laws applicable to its business, while actively protecting client privacy and maintaining the highest security standards.

For more information about Kraken, please visit www.kraken.com.

Your cashback rate depends on the average assets you hold with Krak, Kraken and Kraken Pro. Geo restrictions apply. See theKrak Card Support Centerfor details.

Krak debit card is issued by Lead Bank pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc. Krak is a financial technology company, not a bank. Account balances are not FDIC- or SIPC-insured. Digital assets converted to USD at purchase; values may fluctuate. Available to eligible US residents only; not available in all states. Seeterms. The Krak debit card will be available in all US states except New York, Maine, Massachusetts and Indiana. We are always working to bring our services to all our users.

Spending crypto may be a taxable event, as conversion to fiat can create capital gains or losses. Consult a tax advisor for your individual circumstances. Krak Concierge is powered by Entravel. Kraken is not a travel agent. Prices and refund policies are set by the provider. Krak may receive a commission from Entravel on completed stays. Geo restrictions apply.

Krak Launches Multi-Asset Debit Card for U.S. Customers, Built to Reward Spending as Americans Look to Escape Debt Cycle

LONDON (AP) — After a wait of almost 1,000 years and a journey of hundreds of miles, the Bayeux Tapestry 's big moment is here.

The embroidered panorama depicting the last successful invasion of England goes on public display at the British Museum this week, back on British soil for the first time since the 11th century.

Tickets are sold out for months, and the museum expects 1 million visitors to see the tapestry before the exhibition ends in July 2027. Schoolchildren across the U.K. will get special history lessons on it. King Charles III and French President Emmanuel Macron have already had a private viewing.

It’s an extraordinary level of excitement for what Prime Minister Andy Burnham jokingly called a 70-meter (230-foot) “reminder of one of Britain’s biggest defeats.”

Like a medieval comic strip, the tapestry tells a vivid tale of betrayal, bloodshed, suffering and conquest, depicting a pivotal moment in European history: the Norman conquest of England in 1066.

It illustrates events leading up to the Battle of Hastings, when William, Duke of Normandy defeated King Harold’s Anglo-Saxon army. The invasion made William the first Norman king of England, brought the French language and French settlers to England and forever intertwined the two countries’ fates.

Exhibition curator Michael Lewis said at a preview Monday that “1066 is the most important event in English history,” and there is a “propaganda element” stitched into the tapestry.

He said it was designed to tell English people that “Harold was king, you probably weren’t crazy to follow him, but the status quo has completely changed now. William is king and you need to kind of accept the new reality.”

The tapestry's 58 scenes begins with English nobleman Harold Godwinson traveling to France, where he swears an oath to William, perhaps agreeing to back the duke’s succession to the English throne. But when English ruler Edward the Confessor dies, Harold is crowned king, leading William to assemble a fleet and set sail for England.

The final sections depict the climactic battle: archers with longbows, charging cavalry, sword-wielding knights, hand-to-hand combat and mutilated bodies.

Brutal violence sits alongside domestic detail. Soldiers steal livestock, cook dinner, eat using their shields as plates, burn down an English house as a woman and child flee. People steal from the bodies of the dead.

Margins at the top and bottom of the fabric brim with people, fish, dogs and winged beasts, sometimes acting as ironic commentary on the main action.

It remains remarkably vivid, and would have been even more powerful for its 11th-century viewers, Lewis said.

“Maybe they would even have tried to pick out themselves in the story of these events,” he said.

For historians, the tapestry is an invaluable source of insight into 11th-century life: shipbuilding, fashion, cuisine, architecture, armor, even astronomy. At one point Halley’s comet streaks across the sky, as it really did in 1066.

Scholars still debate its mysteries. Was the arrow that hits Harold in the eye, killing him, a later addition? A final scene, possibly depicting William’s coronation, is missing. Historians even argue about the exact number of equine and human penises on display — either 93 or 94.

Leonie Hicks, professor of medieval studies at Canterbury Christ Church University, says one reason the tapestry remains so famous is because its vivid, childlike illustrations are “very meme-able.”

“It can be used to comment on current politics or mark memorable events,” Hicks wrote in a blogpost, noting a recent magazine cover that showed Burnham on horseback advancing on his predecessor Keir Starmer, depicted as Harold with an arrow in his eye.

“The margins contained Big Ben and Larry the cat,” she said.

The tapestry was likely commissioned by William’s half brother Bishop Odo of Bayeux and has spent almost 1,000 years in the French town. But historians believe it was probably stitched by women in southeast England, not far from the site of the battle. The king noted at a reception with Macron last week that it might just as accurately be called the Canterbury Embroidery.

Governments on both sides of the Channel have hailed its loan as a symbol of a Franco-British friendship. But getting it to London took years of diplomacy. After decades of failed British requests to borrow the tapestry, an agreement was announced in 2018, delayed by COVID-19 and Brexit tensions, and finally confirmed by Macron during a state visit to the U.K. last year.

Some French cultural figures, and the late British artist David Hockney, opposed the move because of the risk of damage to the fragile artifact.

Insured for 960 million euros ($1.1 billion), the tapestry was nestled inside climate-controlled shockproof packaging before being transported by road and rail to the museum under police escort, arriving in the dead of night. It’s being displayed flat, in what curators say is a robust state-of-the-art case, rather than hanging as it was in Bayeux.

Lewis said the “phenomenal expertise” of teams in both France and Britain had allowed it to arrive unscathed.

“It has to make that trip back as well,” he said. “But we’ve learnt so much in that process. I’m confident that we’ve learned a lot that helps us be sure that going back is going to be as good.”

A poster of the Bayeux Tapestry is displayed outside the British Museum in London, Monday, Sept. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

The 70-meter-long Bayeux Tapestry is displayed during a press preview at the British Museum in London after returning to England, following a historic agreement between the UK and France, Monday, Sept. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

The 70-meter-long Bayeux Tapestry is displayed during a press preview at the British Museum in London after returning to England, following a historic agreement between the UK and France, Monday, Sept. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

The 70-meter-long Bayeux Tapestry is displayed during a press preview at the British Museum in London after returning to England, following a historic agreement between the UK and France, Monday, Sept. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

The 70-meter-long Bayeux Tapestry is displayed during a press preview at the British Museum in London after returning to England, following a historic agreement between the UK and France, Monday, Sept. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)