US crypto exchange Kraken stopped accepting deposits from South Africans on Friday last week, following a decision by the exchange’s banking partner to place SA on an anti-money laundering blacklist. The crypto arbitrage premium, which last week ranged between 0.7% and 1.5%, spiked to 3.5% on Monday on the news.
“Whenever you get restricted volumes, you get higher premiums, so this is good news for those [of] our clients who are not reliant on Kraken,” says Iqbal. “When Circle stopped accepting deposits from SA, we got worried that this might repeat in the future, and that’s one of the reasons we didn’t want to rely solely on an exchange. “While others have halted operations, we can continue trading and can exploit the rising premiums for our clients.