Krak Raises USDG Auto Earn to 3.85%, Still Not in the EEA
Krak has raised the reward rate on USDG balances to up to 3.85% APY from 3.60%, with rewards paid automatically every week. The increase is presented as following a rise in policy rates.
The rate sits on the balance the card spends from
Krak pays it through Auto Earn, which the product page describes as rewards on eligible crypto assets held in the account balance rather than in a separate savings product. That is the same balance a Krak Card payment draws on.
One balance therefore does three jobs at once. It funds card spending, it sets the cashback band — cashback of up to 2% depends on average assets held with Krak, Kraken and Kraken Pro — and it earns the Auto Earn rate. Spending it down reduces all three together. A card plus a separate savings account behaves the opposite way: there, moving money toward the card costs yield and moving it toward savings costs availability.
Auto Earn is not available in the EEA
The footnote attached to the balance rate states that geo restrictions apply and that it is not available in the EEA. Cardholders there get the card and the cashback without this leg of the product, so 3.85% does not enter their arithmetic at all.
Vaults are a separate product at a separate level of risk
The up-to-8% figure Krak publishes alongside this belongs to Vaults, not to the balance rate. Vaults are offered by Payward Wallet, LLC, are described as not a regulated financial product, carry fees, and involve third-party protocols that Kraken states it does not control. Auto Earn on the balance and Vaults are two different decisions, and only the first asks for nothing beyond holding the balance.
The 3.85% is a snapshot, and the product page still shows 3.6%
The durable part is the mechanism rather than the number. The rate is variable, quoted as up to, and stated to move with market conditions, so it follows policy rates down as readily as up. At the time of writing krak.app still describes the balance rate as 3.6%, so the higher figure is in the announcement ahead of the product page.
For anyone already holding USDG on Krak to spend, the increase needs no action. For anyone weighing a transfer in to capture it, 25 basis points on a spending float is a thin return next to keeping that float with one company — and in the EEA those 25 basis points are not on offer.
