Kraken unleashed Ink, a new L2 blockchain secured by the Ethereum network and built on the Superchain, on October 24th, 2024. Kraken’s mission has always been to accelerate the adoption of crypto globally so everyone can achieve financial freedom; Ink is a critical step in doing that. Just like Kraken, the Ink team is pirates—crypto OGs that care deeply about freedom, self-sovereignty, permissionless money, decentralization, and privacy. Ink embodies all of these values to take DeFi and onchain finance mainstream.

Starting today, developers can begin building on Ink’s testnet. We decided to release testnet earlier than publicly stated because, why not? Ink is moving at an accelerated startup pace, committed to building openly and transparently with the world, and—most importantly—to shipping fast.

An emphasis on execution means Ink has a tight feedback loop with users, builders, and partners to deliver an amazing user experience and stronger security guardrails to protect both users and partners. For builders, Ink is committed to providing the best full stack tooling they need to bring their products to life.

Ink also brings nearly a decade and a half of defense-grade security practices learned from Kraken and will level up onchain security. After all, Ink is what cephalopods release as a defense mechanism. And Ink will create an onchain experience that matches this. We want to enable developers to onboard users to the onchain world, tapping into the magic behind Kraken’s platform. This means building bridges between the offchain and onchain worlds, while taking crypto UX to new levels.

Why another L2?

We’re an L2 that values transparency and authenticity over proper etiquette. So let’s be real.

Ink sees a future world where the onchain financial system TRUMPs the traditional financial system. We want to enable a seamless experience from the centralized world to the decentralized world, so our users have full freedom to participate in the onchain financial system. 

Like all crypto exchanges, Kraken had been approached over the years to launch some kind of blockchain. The time never felt right and we’ve always loved doing what we do best; creating a secure trading platform with killer UX and support. However, we believe the time is now right for a multitude of reasons:

• Ethereum and its scaling roadmap are clearer than ever and has proven to work. We’re confident that building within the Ethereum ecosystem we will be able to harness chain and account abstraction that won’t be met with any bottlenecks. 

• The EVM developer ecosystem is more familiar to Kraken clients; Kraken was the first large exchange to list Ethereum when the network launched in 2015.

• The EVM is experiencing a Cambrian explosion of account abstraction tools and “web2-like” experiences that allows us to tell the crypto OG story at a higher level to the next billion users.

• The Superchain allows us to plant our flag among existing onchain magic.

• Crypto users and the next billions of them want access to more financial opportunities: the Ink team will help usher in a new wave of applications to provide this to everyone. EVM is the logical place to start as chain abstraction becomes more commonplace

The road ahead

• We want this chain to have the efficiency of a centralized exchange - one second blocktimes with a near target of sub-second is a goal

• Decentralizing the sequencer will follow the typical L2 stages starting with enabling fault proofs ASAP

• We will be hosting a myriad of hackathons and developer houses to bring the Ink vision to life - one balance, one dream

• Talk to us. We’re cypherpunk OGs and want to hear from you and create tight feedback loops of development. Let’s bring the entire finance world onchain together

We can’t wait to flip the switch for mainnet and let the ink flow. Ink the future.