Founded in 2011, Kraken has become one of the largest and wide ranging cryptocurrency exchanges in the world. Kraken focuses entirely on cryptocurrencies. Kraken was founded with the intention of replacing Mt Gox if that ever failed. Since Mt. Gox did fail, Kraken has become one of the industry leaders.
Signing up with Kraken is relatively straightforward. You can sign up using this link.
Kraken has a tier system in place when it comes to your account.
When first signing up, you are in Tier 0 which doesn’t enable you to deposit anything. This does allow you to browse the site and get a feel for what Kraken offers.
It’s sort of like a demo-account, except you can’t actually demo-trade.
The next tiers have different withdrawal limits up to 4 tiers. The final tier requests that you message Kraken directly as this is for traders or corporations looking to put a large sum of money onto the platform.
To sign up you will need proof of address, proof of ID, and your social security number if you are a U.S. resident.
Kraken is available to users living in the USA, Canada, Japan, and EU, with fiat currency deposits available for USD, CAD, GBP, EUR, JPY.
It uses Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulations. Kraken also offers 2FA for additional security.
Unfortunately, Kraken does not offer demo accounts.
Kraken offers a wide range of cryptocurrency pairs. There are simply too many pairs on offer to list them here, so you can rest assured you will be able to find the pair you are looking for.
Their trading fees are thorough and in-depth. Follow this link and you will see the comprehensive break down of their fees for each pair offered.
The fee structure runs on a “the more you trade, the cheaper it becomes” system. The total volume traded on your account is logged and you will receive reduced fees once you reach the next “tier’ of trade volume, calculated from the last 30 days.
The maker and taker fee structure is adopted for all pairs. The fees start out relatively high, with withdrawal fees subject to change at any time.
Kraken currently offers leverage up to 5:1, and offers market order, limit order, stop-loss order, and take-profit orders.
There was an option to use combined orders, but at the time of writing this was disabled. You can keep up-to-date with what is currently being offered here.
There is no limit to the amount of cryptos you can deposit into Kraken. Once you’ve provided your ID and proof of address you can deposit and withdraw up to $25,000 in fiat currency daily and $200,000 monthly.
In March of 2017, Kraken acquired the trading and charting platform CryptoWatch which is now available for you to use and check out.
This software has customisation options available that allows you to draw on the charts and hide sections of the software. It is one of the better in-house charting platforms we have come across in the cryptocurrency space.
The platform offers a good range of time frames as well as a good amount of indicators. Placing an order is simple and easy to do.
If you don’t want to use their charting platform, you can perform all of the necessary trading actions on their website.
Kraken’s website is easy to use and understand. Navigation is simple and clear, with easy access to information such as your trade information, trade history, fee structure, and the support section.
Despite this, it doesn’t feel very beginner friendly. It might take some time to not feel overwhelmed by all the information.
Kraken’s support section is thorough and extensive, with the option to live chat available. However, there are reports from users that Kraken’s support is extremely slow.
Our experience is somewhat similar – albeit we did not have large fund withdrawal requests. This has also been an issue that has smeared Kraken’s reputation. Difficulty withdrawing funds from Kraken is not uncommon in online reviews.
Due to this, we recommend conducting some additional research before depositing large sums of money with Kraken.
Kraken’s cryptocurrency range and easy to use platform makes Kraken one of the better choices.
Unfortunately, the reports of difficulty with withdrawing funds makes us a bit weary. Had they offered a demo-account and had no issues with withdrawing funds, Kraken would have been in our top recommended brokers.
For now, we advise you to take caution when signing up with them if you plan on trading with large amounts.
Below we have outlined the pros and cons for Kraken. Have a read through and if you think you’d like to trade with this broker, you can sign up here. We have other broker reviews available, so if you’d like to check out a few different ones have a look at the menu to the right.