Kraken review

What Kraken is

Kraken has run for fifteen years with zero major exchange hacks. Other exchanges were not so lucky. Bybit lost more than $1.4 billion in February 2025, Bitmart lost $196 million in 2021, and Mt. Gox collapsed after it lost 850,000 BTC.

For these reasons, Kraken's clean security record is the single most important fact about the platform. Large capital and family offices route through Kraken for that reason. So do law-minded traders. They do not come for better fees or more pairs.

Kraken opened in 2011 in San Francisco, before Bitcoin reached $1. The exchange has built legal depth that no other exchange on this list matches. Its UK entity is Crypto Facilities. Crypto Facilities holds full FCA approval. In the US, derivatives brokerage comes from NinjaTrader Clearing, LLC, doing business as Kraken Derivatives US.

That firm is a CFTC-registered Futures Commission Merchant. In the EEA, the entity is Payward Europe Digital Solutions (CY) Limited. It holds CySEC MiFID licence 342/17. Kraken is registered with FINTRAC in Canada and AUSTRAC in Australia. The EU roster adds several national VASP registrations.

In March 2025, Kraken completed the $1.5 billion purchase of NinjaTrader. NinjaTrader is the leading US retail futures platform. With this deal, Kraken became the first crypto exchange to bridge directly into the licensed TradFi futures world.

No other exchange in this comparison has done a deal of that scale or type. See Kraken's open interest and volume on PerpFinder.

Security and proof of reserves

Kraken was the first crypto exchange to do Proof of Reserves. It started the practice in 2014. That was eight years before the FTX collapse made reserve openness the norm. The method uses Merkle tree inclusion proofs.

A named accounting firm does third-party checks. Users can confirm that their balance is part of the total reserve pool. Kraken has committed to a quarterly cadence from now on.

The exchange holds SOC 2 Type II certification. It covers safety, uptime, and processing integrity. SOC 2 Type II is an external audit standard from traditional finance. No rival exchange in the mid-tier has all three of these: Proof of Reserves since 2014, SOC 2 Type II, and a fifteen-year clean security record.

In May 2026 the PerpFinder team checked Kraken's Proof of Reserves portal. The team confirmed BTC and ETH ratios above 100%.

Kraken announced the NinjaTrader deal in March 2025 and closed it later that year. The deal brought a CFTC-registered Futures Commission Merchant under the Kraken umbrella. Binance, Bybit, and OKX do not have that US legal footprint.

Fees in detail

Kraken's futures fee schedule starts at 0.02% maker and 0.05% taker on perpetual contracts. Binance and OKX have the same rates at base level. Volume tiers cut costs for accounts that trade more often:

• Tier 1 (under $5M futures 30-day volume): 0.02% maker, 0.05% taker
• Tier 3 ($10M): 0.015% maker, 0.04% taker
• Tier 4 ($15M): 0.0125% maker, 0.035% taker
• Tier 9 ($100M): 0% maker, 0.02% taker

Take a $10,000 BTC/USDT perpetual round-trip, opened and closed at market. The base taker cost is $10.00 on Kraken, and Binance and OKX cost the same. Kraken does not give a discount for a native exchange token. It has no BNB or OKB equivalent.

Fee cuts come from volume only. At Tier 4, the round-trip drops to $7.00. That cost is in line with VIP-equivalent levels on Binance and Bybit. Use the PerpFinder fee calculator to model your volume bracket.

Spot trading fees are separate and higher. At base, they are 0.16% maker / 0.26% taker, and they step down by volume. If you trade mainly futures, the futures tier is the schedule that counts.

Leverage and pairs

Kraken lists over 100 perpetual futures pairs. The Kraken perpetuals page shows up to 50x leverage for eligible users in select regions. The Kraken derivatives margin schedule lists a higher first-level limit for the BTC perpetual.

So check the limit on your own account. At 50x, a 2% adverse move wipes out a position from full margin. Traders who want 150x on BTC/USDT can use Bybit or Binance.

The multi-collateral structure is a real edge that most rivals lack. You can use BTC, ETH, XRP, LTC, or BCH as margin for perpetual futures, not just USDT. Kraken's linear multi-collateral contract specs show the haircut schedule for each asset.

Some traders hold BTC and want futures exposure without a switch to stablecoins. For them, this structure removes a conversion step. It also cuts currency risk on the collateral leg.

Kraken lists both cross-margin and isolated-margin modes per position. The order types are market, limit, stop-market, stop-limit, and take-profit. The Kraken Pro interface lists TradingView charts.

Who Kraken is for

Some traders need a licensed party. Kraken covers the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and EU through licensed entities, not offshore registrations. Some fund managers and pro desks have legal teams that need documented standing. For those accounts, Kraken is often the only viable option on this list.

Some traders hold BTC or ETH and want leveraged exposure without a switch to USDT. The multi-collateral margin structure makes this direct.

Other traders need 100x+ leverage, a wide altcoin list, or copy trading. For them, Bybit or OKX are better fits. Bybit has 400+ pairs and 150x on BTC/USDT. OKX has 100x and 300+ pairs. For on-chain perps with no custody risk, compare with Hyperliquid.

How it compares

The PerpFinder team tracks daily volume across 22 CEX venues. On any given day, Kraken's BTC/USDT perp volume is usually 2-4% of Binance's. That volume gap is the core trade-off. Kraken's order book on major pairs is fine for mid-size positions under $100k notional.

A $500k market order on Kraken will move the price more than the same order on Bybit or OKX.

A $10k round-trip at Kraken's base taker rate costs $10.00 on Kraken, and Binance, OKX, and Deribit cost the same. Hyperliquid costs $9.00. At base fees, Kraken's cost is close to the largest exchanges. The legal reach and 15-year safety record are the indirect premium.

You pay for them with thinner depth and a smaller pair list. Some accounts need a CFTC-adjacent party or a UK FCA futures venue. For them, there is no practical option here. Run scenarios with the cost comparison tool.