Kraken Cryptocurrency Exchange Review

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It is often difficult for novice traders to choose a trading floor that is suitable for them. In this article, we will look at the popular exchange Kraken and talk about its pros and cons.

History of the Kraken Exchange

Kraken is a very popular cryptocurrency exchange, which is known to both experienced traders and beginners in this field. The platform is among the top five in terms of trading volume. The project was launched in July 2011.

Kraken’s founder and CEO is known as Jesse Powell. The office of the company, whose exchange was the first to be displayed in the Bloomberg trading terminal, is located in San Francisco.

The company acquired several projects that provided exchange services. This significantly increased the influence and visibility of the site in European countries.

The functionality of the platform is not bad, there is also an API. Supported versions as for the public information, as well as for trading. The interface of the exchange is not translated and is only available in English. It is possible to trade from a smartphone on iOS or Android through a special application.

The exchange is in limited demand in runet, judging by the relatively small number of reviews. However, in Western countries, the exchange has received an excellent reputation for always trying to adhere to the law. So far, it has not been involved in any serious scandals. Moreover, the platform continued to function even in the years when competitors were shut down one after another after suffering hacker attacks.

Registration and Verification

To start trading on the exchange, you need to register and be verified. The process of account creation is simple and consists of the usual input of the desired login, password and e-mail address. The latter needs to be confirmed with the link that you will receive in the letter. After that, you will get access to your personal account. However, trading will still not be possible.

The developers have well thought out the verification process and divided it into several steps. Thus, each user decides how much of his personal data he is willing to provide – and gets the appropriate number of opportunities. There are five levels available:

• Level 0 – no verification of any kind, assigned after signing up. Deposit and withdrawal of any currencies is blocked.
• Level 1 – gives the opportunity to deposit cryptocurrency wallets, withdraw funds from them and trade on the exchange. To assign the level it’s necessary to specify full name, date of birth, phone number and country of residence.
• Level 2 – adds support for operations with fiat currencies, their deposit and withdrawal. The residence address should be confirmed.
• Level 3 – increases the limits on withdrawal from the account. It is required to provide individual tax number.
• Level 4 – makes available the maximum withdrawal limits. Assignment of the Level occurs in the manual mode and you need to contact the technical support for this.

Depositing and withdrawing

Kraken has become widespread in many countries due to the fact that it gives an opportunity to trade using a large number of fiat currencies, such as American and Canadian dollars, euros, yen and pounds. The balance for each currency is available in the corresponding section of the personal account.

How to trade on the Kraken

Kraken offers traders a variety of different currencies. There are both popular coins and not too well known tokens. Several dozens of trading pairs are supported in total.

You can start trading immediately after the first level of verification. Trading takes place on the “Trade” page. In addition to trading with personal funds, it is also possible to use borrowed funds. For this purpose, there is support for transactions with leverage. It should also be noted that the charts at the exchange are not too detailed and may seem unfamiliar to most novice traders. However, this does not make the interface complicated and will suit everyone, regardless of trading experience.

If you trade with your own funds, you need to open a trade of the “Trade Position” type. Then your currency is simply exchanged for that which you buy. The identifier of such transactions will always start with the letter “T”. If you want to open such a deal in leverage, then select “None”.

Leverage trades work the same way as Forex trades. You don’t have to have the cryptocurrency you want to sell. All that is required is simply to choose a trading pair. You must specify the leverage size when you open an order.

Fees

On Kraken, fees are 0.24% of the transaction amount. However, the developers have thought out an incentive to increase the number of active traders and the fee is reduced when the trading volume grows.

Trading volume

Kraken has long been among the top cryptocurrencies in terms of trading volume. The daily volume exceeds a quarter of a million dollars and the most popular trading pairs are the following:

• BTC/USD
• BTC/EUR
• ETH/USD
• ETH/EUR
• LTC/USD
• LTC/EUR

Security and support

This trading platform is recognized as safe, despite the fact that the only way to secure your account is a two-factor authentication. But it is used not only during the login to the personal account, but also during the login to the trading page.

It is important to say that Kraken is the first Bitcoin exchange that has undergone a cryptographic audit, which proved that it is well protected and suitable for safe use.

Technical support service of the platform functions well, but there were difficulties in contacting due to the sharp influx of new users. However, this situation is typical for many sites.