Daily brief

August 18, 2026

4 stories curated for this day.

Kraken launches its Krak Card in the US, a debit card offering up to 2% cashback in US dollars or Bitcoin and spending from 600+ supported cash and crypto balances, including Bitcoin and USDC. Sources: kraken (opens in a new tab)
Kraken launches US-listed stock trading for EEA customers, giving European investors access to thousands of regulated US stocks and 100+ xStocks within one unified multi-asset platform. Sources: kraken (opens in a new tab)
Circle Mint expands local-currency on/offramp support to eight currencies including GBP, SGD, MXN, BRL, HKD and CNH, with FX executed inside the platform and no pre-funding required. Sources: circle (opens in a new tab)
PPRO and BLIK have announced a partnership to develop agentic commerce capabilities for local payments in Poland, aiming to connect BLIK to the emerging agentic ecosystem; the joint capabilities are planned and not yet live. Sources: finextra (opens in a new tab)