Kraken Review | The Many Benefits of Using Kraken Today

Your Capital is at risk.

Your Capital is at risk.

Your Capital is at risk.

What is Kraken Exchange?

Kraken was founded in the United States in 2011 by Jesse Powell and is one of the most reputable cryptocurrency exchanges in the world. From their San Fransisco headquarters, they serve over 9M registered clients across 190 countries.

Kraken complies with all legal and regulatory requirements in all jurisdictions where they operate. Kraken has raised over $140M and have over 2000 employees around the world.

Kraken offers fewer products than an exchange like Binance and as such, their interface is less cluttered and easier for beginners to navigate.

Kraken Account Interface — Kraken Account

Kraken KYC Requirements

The signup process on Kraken is straightforward and users can easily get started in less than a minute by following the steps outlined below.

1. Visit the Kraken Website
2. Click on the “Create Account”(top right corner) and enter your information
3. Add the security settings & preferred payment method
4. Deposit funds and start trading

To unlock all features on Kraken you will need to provide identifying information using your passport, driving license, or national id.

Estimated verification time ranges from a few minutes for the intermediate levels and a few days for the Pro levels. The intermediate level will satisfy the needs of most users.

Kraken Crypto Products

Kraken is one of the longest running and most secure exchanges in the world. The company provides a good selection of crypto products tailored to retail clients, professional traders and institutions alike.

This is showcases by the four different user interfaces available on the exchange which are labeled Kraken, Kraken Classic, Kraken Pro and NFT Marketplace.

The default Kraken interface is most suited for beginners that want the easiest way possible to explore, buy, sell, receive and send crypto. It’s incredibly beginner friendly and perfect for users that are just starting out.

The Kraken Classic dashboard contains access points to most products in addition to account settings and security overview.

For the more experienced trader, there is also Kraken Pro where users can engage with more sophisticated products.

First of all, users can use the spot trading order book to buy and sell over 220 cryptocurrencies like BTC, ETH, SOL, ATOM and many others. While Kraken offers a more limited number of cryptocurrencies, most of the large caps are supported.

Margin trading is also available on Kraken where users can long or short assets with up to 5X leverage for over 100 digital assets.

Recently Kraken also introduced futures products with over 90 perpetual contracts available with low fees and up to 50X in leverage.

These futures contracts come with various maturities, including monthly, quarterly, and semi-annual. Traders can trade using isolated margin to limited their downside or choose cross margin to use all their collateral across all positions.

There is also an analytics section on Kraken where traders can easily access different data points to help them execute trades.

In terms of trading volumes, Kraken is in the top 20 category with 24/7 spot trading volumes often reaching $1 billion. When it comes to derivatives trading, it falls much further down the rankings with trading volumes between $50-$100 million.

For those that want to put their digital assets to use, Kraken offers staking for over 20 cryptocurrencies including the likes of ALGO, ADA, ATOM, ETH, MATIC, DOT, SOL, MINA and a few others.

Kraken users in eligible countries also have the option to earn interest on stablecoins like USDT and USDC as well as fiat currencies such as USD and EUR. At the time of writing, Kraken offers 3%-5% interest on stablecoins and fiat currencies.

For those interested in NFTs and other digital collectibles, Kraken offers support for NFTs on Ethereum, Solana and Polygon. Here users can browse between over 250 digital collections and trade with zero fees in some cases.

Kraken being based in the United States means that the company has to adhere to strict transparency and accountability standards not found in offshore exchanges. Kraken regularly provides proof of reserves to show that all user funds are accounted for.

For high net worth individuals and institutional clients, Kraken also offers their very own OTC Desk where large trades and privately occur. Here clients can receive quotes for orders between $100,000 to $1 million with 24/7 service.

Kraken supports trading against other fiat currencies like EUR, GBP, JPY, AUD, CHF and CAD and Crypto-to-Crypto pairs where the main pairs are BTC and ETH.

Kraken

products vs alternatives

Kraken

Kucoin

Bybit

Spot

Yes

Futures

Yes

Leverage

50X

125X

100X

Copy trade

Yes

Lend & Borrow

Yes

Staking

Yes

NFTs

Yes

Signup

Your Capital is at risk.

Your Capital is at risk.

Your Capital is at risk.

Kraken: Trading Fees

Kraken spot trading fees for Kraken Pros users (under $50K 30 day trading volume) are 0.16% for makers and 0.26% for takers. A user is a Taker when his order is immediately matched and a Maker when a limit order is not immediately matched.

If you place a $100 purchase order on Kraken Pro that executes immediately, your fee will be $100 * (0.26/100) = $0.26. Krakens full fee schedule for Kraken Pro users can be found in the table below:

Kraken futures trading fees are 0.02% for makers and 0.05% for takers for trading volumes under $100,000 per month. Fees for Single-Collateral contracts are charged in the collateral currency of the traded contract and Multi-Collateral contract fees are charged in USD.

Kraken

fees vs alternatives

Kraken

Kucoin

Bybit

Spot fee (mkr)

0.16%

0.1%-0.3%

0.10%

Spot fee (tkr)

0.26%

0.1%-0.3%

0.10%

Futures (mkr)

0.02%

0.01%

Futures (tkr)

0.05%

0.06%

Signup

Your Capital is at risk.

Your Capital is at risk.

Your Capital is at risk.

Kraken: Deposit Methods

Kraken allows deposits with the 7 fiat currencies, USD, EUR, CAD, AUD, GBP, CHF, JPY. In all cases there are SWIFT deposits available for free with a processing time between 0-5 business days.

For Europe, SEPA deposits are available for free with a processing time between 0-3 business days. You can also buy directly using your Visa or Mastercard though we would advice against that considering the fees.

Every crypto purchase made with your card comes with a fee of 3.75% + 0.25c that is deducted + 0.9-1.5% fee applied by Kraken depending on the asset pair being purchased.

How to withdraw from Kraken?

Kraken offers users the ability to withdraw funds either via fiat or cryptocurrencies. Withdrawal methods vary depending on the country of residence and the account verification level.

For fiat withdrawals, Kraken supports several options such as bank wire transfer, SWIFT, and SEPA. These methods allow users to withdraw their funds in their local currency directly to their bank account.

The processing time and fees associated with each method vary, with some methods taking longer and incurring higher fees than others. For crypto withdrawals, Kraken supports a wide range of cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and many others.

Users can withdraw their funds to their personal wallets or other exchange accounts. The processing time and fees associated with each withdrawal depend on the specific cryptocurrency being withdrawn, with some being faster and less expensive than others.

Below we have outlined Krakens crypto withdrawal fees for a set of popular cryptocurrencies:

BTC: 0.00001 BTC
ETH: 0.0035 ETH
SOL: 0.01 SOL (0.4$)
ATOM: 0.1 ATOM
DOT: 0.05 DOT
USDT (ERC-20): 3.55 USDT

Kraken: Apps & Wallet

Kraken can be used either through the browser or by downloading their mobile app. The app is available for both iOS and Android devices and can be downloaded from the App Store or Google Play Store.

The Kraken app offers a range of features such as the ability to place buy and sell orders, track market prices and more advanced trading features like margin and futures trading.

Kraken has over 1 million IOS & Android downloads. They have a 4.7 star rating with over 1.7K reviews on the App Store and 4 star rating with almost 27K reviews on the Play Store.

Is Kraken Safe?

Kraken employees a team of top security professionals to ensure their clients assets are protected at the highest levels. Kraken keeps 95% of all deposits offline in geographically distributed cold storage facilities not connected to the internet.

In the unlikely event that a hack occurs, this significantly limits the amount of funds that are exposed and makes it less likely that Kraken becomes insolvent.

All sensitive account information is encrypted and their servers reside in secure cages under 24/7 surveillance by armed guards and video monitors.

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Has Kraken ever been hacked?

Kraken has never been hacked in over 10 years of operations and has a perfect 10/10 Coingecko Trust Score.

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Is Kraken licensed or regulated?

Kraken complies with all the legal and regulatory requirements in the jurisdictions they operate in. Kraken is registered and regulated:

‍

As a Money Services Business (MSB) with FinCen in the US and FINTRAC in Canada
By the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the UK
By the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC)
With the FSA in Japan
By the Wyoming division of banking

‍

Kraken client funds are held directly by clients in their own bank accounts at our partner banks, which are heavily regulated.

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Kraken security features

Kraken offers the most common security features such as two-factor authentication, withdrawal address management to make it harder for attackers to both access accounts and transfer funds to unverified addresses.

‍Constant, real-time monitoring for suspicious activity and Security notifications are used if the system detects suspicious activity. Sensitive data is fully encrypted at rest and in transit.

While Kraken provides world class security, to be one the safe side, we suggest that you never store your crypto on any exchange. Instead, safeguard your crypto assets by storing them in hot or cold non custodial wallets that nobody else can access.

Kraken

security vs alternatives

Kraken

Kucoin

Bybit

Hacked

Proof of reserves

Yes

Licenses

FinCEN, FSP, FCA, VASP, APAC

VA in Dubai

Signup

Your Capital is at risk.

Your Capital is at risk.