Kraken is considering using nuclear energy to power its data centers. Decentralized Finance In an exclusive interview with CoinDesk, the company's chief technology officer, Vishnu Patankar, said the growing adoption of blockchain technology, or DeFi, and increased demand for its services are driving the company's growth.
Kraken doesn't intend to build its own reactors, but is looking to partner with energy suppliers that can provide nuclear power through small modular reactors (SMRs), which Patankar said could coexist with data centers and wouldn't be subject to space or weather constraints.
“The need for a trusted fiat onramp continues to grow as more institutional investors enter the crypto asset class and activity moves on-chain,” Kraken's CTO said. “Strengthening energy resilience means strengthening a direct path into the crypto ecosystem and supporting its continued growth.”
Patankar said crypto exchanges are working to secure energy supplies as the power stability landscape changes due to a surge in demand from artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC) companies.
Kraken is exploring nuclear power options in North America and Europe.
“Due to the 24/7 and global nature of cryptocurrencies, Kraken requires a continuous energy supply, especially as it handles a large percentage of global trading volume,” Patankar said. With the need to operate a cryptocurrency business 24/7 and the expectation of mass adoption of cryptocurrencies over time, Kraken is looking at ways to scale its business in terms of energy supply and latency.
Kraken's consideration of the idea comes as a growing number of technology companies are exploring deals with nuclear power plants to power the data centers needed to meet the demands of artificial intelligence. The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday that the trend is becoming more prominent, with companies such as Amazon Web Services looking to secure deals with nuclear power plants to power their data centers.
A surge in demand from power-hungry AI companies has led bitcoin miners to pivot from mining the cryptocurrency to supplying infrastructure to these companies. Core Scientific (CORZ) transaction It partnered with artificial intelligence company CoreWeave earlier this month.
“Nuclear backup means Kraken can continue to operate even if there is a major disruption to local energy supplies,” Patankar said. “This adds redundancy and protects our energy resiliency, allowing us to continue delivering products and services to our customers around the world around the clock.”
Patankar said Kraken expects a big boom in DeFi, whether it's running validator or transaction nodes, which could mean the company's energy needs grow exponentially in the future.
While a final decision has yet to be made, Patankar said Kraken is definitely considering nuclear as an option, as other options like wind and solar are weather dependent and energy storage poses challenges.
A common criticism made against the cryptocurrency industry is that proof-of-stake blockchains such as Bitcoin require huge amounts of processing power and are therefore very wasteful in terms of energy usage. Nuclear energy suffers from a similar negative perception, but for different reasons. However, in this case it may be a greener solution: any excess energy produced by nuclear reactors can be captured and used to power cooling systems in data centers.
