Kraken, a Bitcoin exchange, raises $5M

Kraken, an online exchange for Bitcoin, Litecoin, Namecoin, Ven, Ripple, and other digital currencies, has collected a tidy $5 million.

That’s $5 million in real, grown-up dollars.

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Kraken is a division of Payward, a firm specializing in virtual goods and virtual currencies. What makes its Kraken special, you ask?

From a release on the news:

At Kraken, foreign-exchange markets meet Bitcoin on a secure platform where customers can trade digital currencies on protected hardware, with margin trading and advanced ordering, along with fast deposits and withdrawals enabled by a strategic, exclusive partnership with German online bank Fidor Bank.

“We are excited to get significant funding to expand Kraken, which already has the most advanced order types, from the newest of users to the most sophisticated traders,” said Jesse Powell, founder and CEO of Kraken, in a statement.

Kraken publicly launched in September 2013, and now claims it is the top exchange in Europe.The company also touts Kraken’s “strict regulatory compliance and professional array of advanced order types, the result of two years of development.”