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General Information
| Kraken | Bittrex | |
| Year of foundation | 2011 | 2014 |
| Country | USA | USA |
| Languages | English, Japanese, Chinese, German, Spanish, Russian, Greek, Ukrainian, Turkish, French, Italian, Portuguese, and two types of Korean | English, Russian, Chinese |
| Mobile app | iOS | iOS, Android |
Registration and Verification
Kraken
Kraken uses verification levels to determine how you can fund your account. You can deposit and withdraw only digital currency at Level 1. However, you can exchange digital currency as well as fiduciary currencies at this level. To reach Level 1, you must submit your full name, date of birth, country, and phone number. In Level 2 or Level 3, bank deposits and withdrawals (via bank transfer) are available.
Bittrex
You can easily create a free account on Bittrex. You can choose a personal or corporate account. Corporate accounts are more closely monitored and take longer to open. KYC verification is mandatory for full access to Bittrex platform features. Without KYC, withdrawal options will be limited. When creating an account, you need to go through the standard email verification process, read the terms of service, fill out basic profile details and pass the KYC check.
User Interface
Kraken
Kraken has a vast list of support FAQs and provides a training guide to help the beginner get started. Users have criticized Kraken for having an unintuitive user interface, being slow in processing transactions, and arbitrarily closing accounts without explanation.
Bittrex
The interface is typical, integrating a chart from TradingView and a set of familiar panels (price markers, deal formation panel, order book, etc.). Questions may arise only at the stage of parsing trading orders and the formation of the first deals. The problem is in the too superficial description of trade orders contained in the reference material. And this is taking into account that some orders have several special settings unique to this exchange.
Trading Volumes and Traded Pairs
Kraken
Kraken is not a dedicated crypto-currency exchange, as it also facilitates the fiat exchange of currencies such as Euro, Yen, Dollar, Pound, etc. Kraken accommodates over 17 cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin SV, Cardano, DASH, Dogecoin, EOS, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, Litecoin, Monero, Ripple, Tether, Zcash, and many more.
Bittrex
Bittrex has no functionality for margin trading. This means that traders have the opportunity to earn only on growth, i.e., to enter only Long positions. Bittrex exchange has 442 trading pairs and many cryptocurrencies. You can quickly check if your token or coin is supported on the market data aggregator CoinMarketCap.
Commission
Kraken
At Kraken, the manufacturer’s rates peak at 0.16% and drop to 0.00% for most trading partners. Rates range from 0.10% to 0.26% for takers.
Bittrex
Commissions at Bittrex Crypto Exchange are universal and are 0.25% for each order type. Deposits and withdrawals are not subject to fees.
Security
Kraken
Kraken stores most offline digital assets in encrypted wallets, while the remaining currencies are used to maintain liquidity in the exchange. Kraken also maintains full reserves that ensure that no banking can be done in the market. Kraken does not mention FDIC insurance on its website, a security precaution taken by other popular exchanges.
Bittrex
Security is not an empty word for this exchange. One of the most critical security elements for any crypto trader is 2FA. This feature increases the safety of the account.
Pros and Cons
Kraken
Bittrex
I have been studying cryptocurrency for over 5 years. I have accounts in every exchange and I test everything on myself.
I want this market to be more understandable for everyone.