Review: Kraken Digital Assets

Is Kraken a legitimate financial institution you can trust with your savings? Does this cryptocurrency exchange have reasonable fees? Can you say that Kraken is user-friendly? These and many other questions will be covered in this in-depth review of one of the most popular and long-standing cryptocurrency trading platforms in the world.

Kraken has been around since 2011 and the company's headquarter is in San Francisco, California. Kraken is considered to be one of the most secure exchanges on the market, with a long list of features designed to protect both traders and their assets. In this article, our digital finance experts investigate if Kraken is a good choice and is worth your attention in a vast sea of competing products for cryptocurrency trading. For this review, the panel of experts includes our team member who's previously worked at Kraken as Senior Product Manager - it's always nice to have some insider knowledge when reviewing complex investment products!

Kraken is a digital asset exchange that offers a wide range of assets, including cryptocurrencies, fiat currencies, and commodities. It’s one of the oldest and most well-established exchanges in the industry, with over 4 million users from all over the world. Kraken offers a highly intuitive trading interface that’s suitable for beginners and experienced traders alike. It also has an advanced trading platform (Kraken Pro) for more experienced users.

Kraken supports a wide range of fiat currencies, including USD, EUR, CAD, GBP, and JPY. Along with it, there are multiple ways to fund your wallet provided by Kraken, as the company provides its services in over 190 countries globally. This crypto exchange also supports a wide range of cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ripple (XRP), Ethereum Classic (ETC), Monero (XMR), Dash (DASH), Stellar (XLM), EOS (EOS), Augur (REP), Tether (USDT), and Zcash (ZEC).

Kraken has built up a very solid reputation in the industry and is often recommended as one of the best exchanges for both beginners and experienced traders. Kraken prides itself on the fact that it is the only major cryptocurrency exchange that has not been exposed to hackers or data leaks. It was also the first exchange in the world to volunteer for an extensive "Proof of Reserves" audit. This regular series of exhaustive checks independently verifies that the assets of Kraken users are stored securely and are present in the reserves at a 1:1 ratio. This means that even in the most dire and extreme circumstances, all of the digital assets you store with the exchange are 100% safe.

Kraken is enjoyed by over 9 million clients all over the world as has a long list of features that make it an attractive option for all kinds of users, beginners and pros alike. In this review, we'll cover the platform's key advantages and unique features in the next section.

New to the world of cryptocurrency? Make sure to explore our "Complete Beginner's Guide to Crypto & Blockchain" and other informative and useful content represented in our "Guides" section.

Kraken supports a wide range of digital assets, providing users with an ability to buy and sell more than 185 cryptocurrencies. This makes the exchange a good option for those who want to diversify their crypto portfolios by including lesser-known altcoins. On top of that, having access to so many coins and tokens means you will never have a FOMO moment once previously-overlooked assets start trending. This means that trading crypto with Kraken enables your investment strategy to be as efficient as your trading acumen allows.

Kraken's crypto trading interface is very clean, the platform itself is very easy to use and it is suitable for both beginners and experienced traders. Next to the standard "consumer" apps made with beginner to intermediate-level trader in mind, Kraken also offers an advanced trading platform. The advanced trading platform (called "Kraken Pro") is a standalone app that was built with more experienced traders in mind. These who take crypto trading seriously are invited to "supercharge their trades" using a wide range of advanced trading features. These include: deep liquidity across various markets (allowing you to easily trade large amounts), high rate limits thanks to extremely swift and robust API and very low spreads.

Margin trading amplifies your trades, giving you an ability to execute trades using amounts exceeding your total deposit. Kraken offers up to 5x leverage, and you can use that to go short or long on a cryptocurrency of choice quickly and easily. For high-stakes crypto traders, Kraken offers high margin limits - eligible users have access to up to $500'000. Another benefit of margin trading at Kraken is low rollover fees - you pay just 0,02% per period for your leverage.

Tip: Confused about the jargon? Visit our investor's dictionary and get up to speed with all the lingo in no time!

You can earn up to 21% annually by staking your crypto at Kraken. Staking your coins only takes a few clicks and you can instantly unstake your assets whenever you need them, making them available for trading immediately. An additional benefit of staking crypto at Kraken is that the rewards are transferred to your account twice a week, unlike most other exchanges offer. Surprisingly, you can also stake fiat currencies off-chain, and get up to 3% annual return on USD and 1,5% on EUR. Combined with platform's impeccable track record on security and regular audits by reputable institutions, this likely makes Kraken the second best option to a cold wallet you can choose.

Powered by CF Benchmarks, Kraken's cryptocurrency indices are institutional-grade tool based on up-to-the-second pricing data. This means that the crypto index prices always 100% reflect the state of affairs on the broader crypto market. The pricing indices included are based on Bitcoin, Ether, Ripple (XRP), Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin. If you are in the market for utilizing a regulated financial product with high integrity to supplement your investment portfolio, Kraken crypto index is a great solution you should definitely consider.

Futures, as defined in our investor's dictionary, are a specific type of contract for executing a transaction at a later date. Investors who are confident in certain asset's price increasing or decreasing at a certain point in time may choose to commit to a futures contract to secure profit in the future.

Kraken's crypto futures come with additional benefits. Not only users are provided with leverage to amplify their transacting power, but they can also hedge against spot market volatility, no matter which way the market moves. Overall, an ability to gain exposure to a wide range of digital assets without owning them (called "multi-collateral advantage" by Kraken) is a very powerful tool in your arsenal.

Unlike some of the other cryptocurrency exchanges, Kraken pricing model is very transparent and straightforward. As is standard in the industry, the fees for "consumer" products (these aimed at casual "retail" investors) are significantly higher than the ones for the advanced "Pro" trading platform. With fees as low as 0%, Kraken is one of the most cost-efficient trading platforms you can sign up for. Find the Kraken cost tables with fees for each of the product types below.

Our advice: Avoid using "Instant buy" to purchase crypto with a bank card. This is not unique to Kraken - every exchange imposes high fees on these transactions as the bank card processors take a significant cut the exchange has to compensate somehow. Instead, deposit assets in your account via bank transfer and buy the coins you are after once it hits your account. You will end up saving up to 3% of your funds, which is a very significant amount, even if your investment is quite small.

Context: Your trade order might have either taker or maker fees applied to it. Trades get the maker fee if your order is not immediately matched against an open order already on the books (meaning you add liquidity by expanding the exchange's volume of assets on the books). Taker fees are applied to trades that get immediately matched with an order already in the books (thus, reducing the liquidity of the exchange overall). In general, the more popular (reflected in daily trading volume) your asset of choice is, the lower your trading fees are.

Kraken fees are very reasonable - the crypto powerhouse leverages its position as one of the world's largest and oldest exchanges to provide its users with an attractive fee structure. The exchange also encourages you to trade frequently and with a high transaction volume by decreasing platform's commission as your trading volume increases. Kraken is definitely an excellent choice if you are serious about cryptocurrency trading, meaning your efficiency as a trader scales with the amount of trades you execute.

Fees imposed by Kraken for trading futures follow the suit - the exchange wants you to get on the next level, facilitating its mission of driving cryptocurrency adoption all over the world. It is important to keep in mind that you can also take advantage of leverage provided by the platform when trading futures. This means that the gains required to make up for the costs involved in using the platform are easier to achieve, meaning your margins increase if your strategy is successful.

Looking for an alternative to Kraken? Below is our selection of the best investment apps and platforms we suggest you consider. We also suggest you discover our list of the most popular investment apps, stock brokers and crypto exchanges when making your decision.

If you want to feel more connected to the world of investing overall, study how the top traders perform, be in touch with the current trends and share your successes, make sure to read our eToro multi-asset exchange review. Social investing with a trusted partner feels different from trading with Kraken, but it might just be your cup of tea.

If you want a simple user interface, an ability to set up recurring buys to grow your portfolio over time and a rapidly developing German product that's great for beginners, head over to our detailed Trade Republic review and find out if the "all-in-one" savings & investment app is right for you.

Another alternative - this time an established, tried-and-tested exchange based in the US. In our Gemini review we went over all the pros and cons of that platform - who knows, maybe it's exactly what you're looking for in terms of digital asset trading?

Kraken is one of the best and most reliable cryptocurrency exchanges that we've used. They offer a wide range of features, low fees, and have been around for a long time (which is a rare and a very valuable characteristic in the crypto industry). Of course, no single solution is perfect - for instance, unlike the all-in-one investment platform Bitpanda, Kraken does not offer stocks, ETFs nor precious metals. It also does not provide any "social trading" features eToro does. Kraken chooses a different route - doing one thing, but doing it on a world-class level. And it definitely succeeds in doing so, as evident by the crypto exchange's growth in the amount of customers, trading volume and its geographical expansion.

Overall, we can definitely vouch for Kraken - it is a great choice for anyone looking for a reliable and feature-rich cryptocurrency exchange (with a cool logo!).