Kraken announced last week that the company is now considering going public via a direct listing in 2022. CEO Jesse Powell said the firm is weighing a stock market debut in 2022: "We're looking at being able to go public sometime next year. It would probably be a direct listing, similar to Coinbase."

Founded in 2011, U.S.-based Kraken is one the world's biggest crypto exchanges with over 6 million clients, and it is the fourth largest exchange by trading volume. Kraken saw 4 times as many new users sign in the first quarter of 2021 than it did in the second half of 2020. Spot trading volumes in the first quarter soared 1.5 times higher than in all of last year to a record level of $160 billion. Powell noted Kraken is in talks with investors for a new funding round that could potentially value it as high as $20 billion, though adding the firm is not rushing to raise capital since it already boasts a strong balance sheet.

Here is the rest of the week in review:

NYDIG on Thursday raised another $100 million from insurance companies as the institutional crypto shop previewed its latest business venture in Bitcoin (BTC) insurance products. Liberty Mutual, Starr Insurance, and other unnamed property and casualty coverage firms joined NYDIG's "growth capital round," just a month after NYDIG raised $200 million from MassMutual and New York Life. NYDIG also named industry veterans Mike Sapnar, CEO of Transatlantic Reinsurance, to lead its global insurance solutions unit, and Matt Carey of annuity marketplace Blueprint Income to lead the U.S. segment effort. NYDIG Executive Chairman Ross Stevens did not give exact details on the new insurance products but hinted at "new Bitcoin-denominated products for global insureds" being developed. The aggressive hires and fundraise reflect the vision of NYDIG to make Bitcoin insurance plays with financial backing from some of the most visible industry names.

Revolut added another 11 crypto tokens for customers to trade in the U.K. and E.U. British digital banking service Revolut wrote in a blog post Thursday introducing the new coins and warning customers about the risks: "As always, we want to remind you of the risks involved when buying or selling crypto, and that the prices of crypto can be very volatile. Your capital is at risk. While we believe in crypto accessibility for all, we also know that it might not be appropriate for everyone. Please consider your personal circumstances when buying or selling crypto." The new coins available are Cardano (ADA), Uniswap (UNI), Synthetix (SNX), Bancor (BNT), Filecoin (FIL), Loopring (LRC), Numeraire (NMR), Orchid (OXT), UMA, yearn.finance (YFI), and The Graph (GRT). The firm noted crypto funds are held in cold storage "with some of the best custodians" in order to reduce the risk of customer funds being hacked and stolen.

Crypto prices again climbed to $2.046 trillion this week, thanks to record-breaking surges for Bitcoin and Ether (ETH). For the majors, only Polkadot (DOT) and Uniswap slipped, while the others ended in the green. In the top 100, the biggest losers were Pundi X (NPXS), down 33%, Holo (HOT), down 28%, and Klatyn (KLAY), down 21%. The biggest gainers were Bitcoin Gold (BTG), up 184%, KuCoin Token (KCS), up 138%, and XRP, up 118%.

The author owns a small amount of BTC.