Kraken is a crypto exchange platform based in San Francisco and founded by Jesse Powell. It’s the third-largest platform known for cryptocurrency exchange globally, serving over 170 countries across the globe, including U.S. states.
Participants are allowed to trade U.S. dollars (USD), Canadian dollars (CAD), euros (EUR), and Japanese yen (JPY). As of mid-January, 2023, Kraken reached a daily trading volume of $333 million, making them a top player with over 600 cryptocurrency pairs. Among many, some available virtual currencies on Kraken include Ethereum (ETH), Bitcoin (BTC), EOS (EOS), and Monero (XMR). It’s also still one of the few platforms offering low trading fees.
Bonuses for Kraken
When you create an account with trading platforms, they typically offer a sign-up bonus. Kraken is no different, they offer a bonus when you fulfill the requirements of that bonus. Here are the available bonuses on Kraken and all you need to know about them:
$10 Sign Up Bonus
New users on Kraken are eligible for a $10 sign-up bonus. To enjoy this bonus, you need to create an account using a referral link or directly on their platform. On Kraken, users benefit from minimal trading fees, especially if you’re new to the platform. For instance, Kraken Pro charges 0.26% to buy and 0.16% to sell, making it one of the best trading platforms.
To enjoy the sign-up bonus:
- Open a Kraken account and sign up.
- Trade crypto that is close to $100 in worth within a month.
- Get your $10 bonus in Bitcoin (BTC).
20% Commission Bonus
Apart from the bonus meant for new users on Kraken, the platform also offers a 20% affiliate commission bonus. Like the sign-up bonus, you can always benefit from the trading fees of the platform. Users get paid for the lifetime of a specific account’s trading fees, which can be up to a $1,000 USD payout per referral. Trading fees in this context are spot trade fees, margin rollover fees, and margin opening fees.
To enjoy the 20% commission bonus:
- Join the Kraken affiliate program
- Share the affiliate link with others
- Get your 20% of the trading fees collected for the lifetime of the accounts (up to $1,000) per trading account
The commission is open to bloggers and social media influencers with 5,000 or more followers or subscribers.
Friend Referral Bonus
Kraken’s referral program allows you to earn a $10 USD referral bonus once you follow the right processes. All you need to do is let your friend sign up to Kraken using your referral link and trade (buy or sell) up to $100 in cryptocurrency. Kraken referral bonuses can vary from time to time, but they seem to always remain reasonable.
To enjoy this referral bonus:
- Create a Kraken account
- Generate a referral link
- Get your bonuses when people create an account
Benefits of Using Kraken
Kraken has key features that are beneficial and make it stand out from the crowd as a crypto exchange platform. Some of these are:
- Margin Trading with 5x Leverage
Kraken users have the option to use “margin trading,” which is a feature that provides up to five times leverage. On this feature, you can choose Futures trading, OTC trading, and staking. You can also benefit from other transaction types like crypto-to-crypto transactions, and fiat-crypto transactions. Here’s a breakdown of what Kraken offers under margin trading:
- Futures Trading
Crypto futures is an agreement between two parties to transact the fiat-equivalent value of a crypto asset or the asset itself in the future. In this type of trading, the trader makes a profit if their price prediction about a contract’s digital asset becomes valid. Futures trading is a zero-sum game. So, one party will always incur losses for the other to gain since it’s an agreement between two parties. Kraken Futures offers a highly competitive fee structure in the crypto market — fees are as low as 0.01%.
On Kraken, users have access to over 95 perpetual futures to take advantage of market opportunities by going short and long. You can also improve your buying and selling power by using leverage alongside competitive trading fees in the market.
- OTC Trading
OTC is short for over-the-counter trading and Kraken offers this feature with private and personalized services. The OTC trading offers worry-free liquidity, which helps you get a quote for $100,000 – $1M orders. With an automated RFQ, this feature allows you to request live trade quotes, execute orders, and settle immediately.
OTC trading can be accessed 24/7 with no limitations. It’s available around the globe and allows you to settle trades within 24 hours. To enjoy OTC, you need to sign up for OTC trading, trade over chat, trade RFQ through the OTC portal, and complete the trade. Kraken will require you to provide base currency, quote currency, and amount to get a quote for your over-the-counter trade.
- Staking
On Kraken, you can earn staking rewards up to 26 percent when you stake crypto and fiat for a period as an incentive to get staking assets. On Kraken, some staking coins may need a bonding period. To earn the rewards, start by selecting the asset you intend to stake after bonding.
There are different coins you can earn rewards from through Kraken’s staking feature. Coins like Tezos (XTC) and Cosmos (ATOM) can be purchased on Kraken and you can also stake them to win rewards. In the long run, staking contributes to blockchain’s decentralization by distributing validation power among validators. Doing this reduces the risk of centralization, making networks more resilient to potential attacks.
- Crypto-to-Crypto Transactions
If you’re new to using a crypto exchange platform, you should enjoy what Kraken offers. Similar to other platforms, you should understand the basic elements involved in making peer-to-peer transactions possible before starting. The three core components for a complete crypto payment are the crypto wallet, blockchain network, and crypto to pay for the blockchain gas fee.
- Fiat-Crypto Transactions
The fiat-crypto transactions are seamless, including the funding experience with US Dollars (USD), Canadian Dollars (CAD), and Euros (EUR). Kraken’s wide selection of fiat and cryptocurrency funding options will allow you to trade anywhere with little to no limitations. Clients in the U.S. can link their bank accounts to fund Kraken, except for people in states like NY, WA, and TX. Funds deposited with EUR and CAD are free. If you’re trying to buy cryptocurrency, you can either use your phone’s digital wallet, a suitable credit or debit card, or a bank transfer.
- Setting Price Alerts
Price alerts are a Pro feature on Kraken. It notifies traders when any exchange reaches its specified price level. The alerts can be set on mobile or web interfaces. Users can also adjust the settings to get notified in just one or both of their devices. For traders who want to stay updated on market movements, Price Alerts is an important feature to utilize. This feature can help proactive traders set specific price levels to get notified on any gadget they choose.
On Kraken, price alerts are on the Market chart. So, it’s easy to manage them by dragging and dropping. Users can manage active price alerts too by sorting them by last modified or date created. Clicking the alerts takes the user to a live chart where you can begin trading. On the Web, you can set price alerts by following these steps:
- Go to the alerts widget behind the “Order form” when in “Advanced view.”
- If you don’t see the widget there, you can add it manually by clicking on “Layouts & widgets” and toggle the “Alert” switch on.
- You can also navigate to the top right of any widget, click the three dots, add widgets, the click “Alerts”
To set price alerts on mobile, follow these steps:
- Ensure push notification settings for Kraken Pro are turned on. Under notifications, the price alerts notification is typically on by default since you need to set the actual alert on the device to activate it.
- Navigate to the price alerts modal, which could be through the bell icon at the top right corner of the Markets page or by tapping any open market.
- Within the alerts modal, both active and historical alerts are visible. You can also make a new one by clicking the “Create new alert” button.
More Benefits
- Monitoring Market Trends
Kraken calls this “Cryptowatch”. It allows you to monitor market trends on over 2,000 crypto markets. You can read through the market reports that also get released on the website. Monitoring market trends typically involves technical analysis, fundamental analysis, and sentimental analysis. Technical analysis involves detecting trends relating to statistics and history. It involves examining price movements and crucial indicators like trading volume. People involved in technical analysis believe price follows trends and history always repeats itself. So, they use data to predict whether the price will go up or down.
Fundamental analysis is different from the technical approach. Instead of judging based on price movements by history and statistics, it analyzes factors that drive the numbers. Examples of these factors are the economy or how a company is managed. Fundamental analysis doesn’t involve emotions and follows the philosophy that the market may have an overestimated or underestimated cryptocurrency value that will later be corrected.
The last type of analysis is the sentimental analysis. This is when traders follow the opinions or research of key players in the market like journalists, influencers, and everyday consumers. This type of analysis believes that data doesn’t always give a full breakdown. Instead, trends like panic selling or mass purchasing can be picked up based on public expectations and perceptions.
Cryptowatch through “Market Trends” on Kraken doesn’t need you to be overly conscious of those three ways of analysis. While you can still make your independent analysis, it provides updates on market trends and the best market decisions to make. Good prediction of market trends will help in:
- Providing potential profits: If a trader successfully anticipates the direction of crypto prices, they can make the right buying or selling decisions and capitalize on price movements to make a profit.
- Risk management: By identifying market downturns when analyzing market trends, traders can adjust their positions and implement protective measures to limit losses.
- Strategic decision-making: This helps investors to select the right cryptocurrencies and align their investment techniques with anticipated market conditions.
- Timing opportunities: Good prediction of market trends can help in identifying optimal entry and exit points. As a trader, you can easily maximize gains and minimize losses.
Revenue Sharing is one of the top benefits of trading on the Kraken futures section. Kraken understands that efficient trading can only occur when several counterparties are willing to be on your side of the trade. For this reason, the platform employs a Revenue Share Program (RSP) in February 2019 that rewards active traders and people who provide liquidity to Kraken Futures. When there’s more liquidity, volume, and tighter spreads, traders can get in and out of trades with ease. RSP is available for everyone and provides the same terms for participants.
Kraken pays 30% of its revenue back to traders in RSP. Also, the minimum payout a week is set at $25,000. So, at the end of every week, each trader’s contribution to the liquidity pool gets calculated and revenue is paid accordingly.
If you want to see an estimate of your end-of-week payout, you can navigate to the “Revenue Share” section on your trading interface.
- Position Assignment System
When there are large price moves in cryptocurrency, the liquidation of futures positions may fall below the minimum margin requirements. For this reason, Kraken helps manage liquidations by sending an immediate or canceled order to the order book. When this happens, the entire position may be successfully liquidated. However, in the case of large liquidations, the liquidity present in the order book may be insufficient to liquidate the entire position.
Position Assignment System (PAS) in Kraken assigns the part of the position that wasn’t liquidated to another trader on the platform who signed up to get those assignments. Similar to the RSP, any user can participate in the PAS by submitting assignment preferences through the interface. For every contract type, you can decide on the largest assignment size you want to receive. For example, if an assignment of 150,000 contracts comes up, you can decide to receive up to 37,500 contracts and not more.
- High Performing System
When you trade volatile assets with a high leverage, the exchange’s performance can greatly affect your profitability. Many traders face problems like “Order Submission Error” and are unable to get out of a position. Due to the problems relating to exchanges’ performance, Kraken has developed a sustainable method of performing crucial tasks at the fastest speed. Examples of these tasks are:
- Margin, mark prices, and PnL recalculate multiple times in less than a second
- Indices are calculated once every second with the CME CF Methodology
- Effective leverage appears on the open positions tab
- Use two clicks to effectively close positions at market price
- Public trades history assigns L to Liquidations and A to Assignments.
Kraken’s engine performance performs better than most platforms. For instance, they calculate mark prices multiple times a second compared to other platforms that perform this task once in two to three seconds. To reduce latency, Kraken also allows traders to whitelist their IPs, which greatly reduces latency for any API endpoint. Kraken’s latency statistics are not above 1 – 2 milliseconds on average.
Security & Trading Fees
Security
Over the years, cryptocurrency has proven to be vulnerable to cyber-attacks. This vulnerability has made reputable platforms improve their security to avoid legal action or the need to reimburse funds to users.
Kraken prioritizes its security and ranks second on the crypto exchange security review site (CER). The exchange has also not had any hacking events since its inception. All contact information or other sensitive details of traders are encrypted. The exchange received the CSO50 Award for its security initiatives. Apart from the fact that Kraken runs a secure online system, they have 95% of their deposits held offline in cold storage units across the world. The Kraken servers are kept in secure cages under constant surveillance by video monitors and armed guards.
Trading Fees
There are different fees for using Kraken to buy cryptocurrency, which can appeal to beginners. Kraken’s Instant Buy feature allows users to buy crypto quickly but at a charge of 0.9% for stablecoins and 1.5% for other cryptocurrencies. Users may also need to pay a 0.5% processing fee if they use an online bank account to purchase cryptocurrency Users who opt for Kraken Pro have lower fees. The exchange charges a 0.16% maker fee and 0.26% taker fee for trades less or equal to $50,000.
Final Thoughts
Kraken checks all the necessary boxes to look out for in an exchange platform. It offers low trading fees and excellent bonuses, making it easy to capitalize on profits. If you’re new to Kraken, you have the chance to benefit from the $10 free sign-up bonus and if eligible, you can also get more benefits from the platform.
In just two years after BTC’s launch, Kraken successfully established itself in the crypto space. As a beginner or expert trader, utilizing the offers and features on Kraken will help you minimize risks and increase the possibility of profit.
