Looking for a professional and unbiased Kraken review? We got your back. Kraken is one of the biggest and most affluent cryptocurrency exchanges in the market today. However, there is a lot of bad rap about crypto exchanges and we have taken it upon ourselves to shed a light on the true nature of the platform. This comes after we have seen a lot of confusing information about the exchange and our aim is to set the record straight. If you have used the platform before, please leave a comment in the section below and we will take it into account when updating the review as the team improves the platform.
Unbiased and Accurate Kraken Review
What Is It?
Kraken is much like the traditional stock exchange but instead, users trade cryptocurrencies and tokens. It matches a buyer and a seller for a fee and unlike other platforms such as Coinbase, which is a broker, you cannot buy digital assets using your credit card. The platform was launched in 2011, by Jesse Powell and it has continued to push new boundaries in the crypto space. It became the first cryptocurrency exchange to be featured on Bloomberg’s ticker as well as to pass a verifiable proof of reserves audit.
Kraken Features
These are the features that make Kraken one of the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the market today.
Trading Options
Kraken offers several trading options but the most important is that they have a variety of fiat currencies that you can trade including EUR, GBP, USD, CAD, and the Japanese Yen. Other than this, Kraken supports 17 cryptocurrencies and tokens and provides a whole multitude of trading pairs. Traders on the platform get to enjoy Bitcoin Margin Trading with up to 5X leverage on the traders with shorting.
Functionality
The platform provides detailed trading documentation on a basic user interface to ensure that beginners as well as professionals find it easy to trade. However, professionals will fancy the charts that make trade prediction easy for them. However, Kraken’s mobile app is only available to iOS users.
Liquidity
The platform has a high level of liquidity which allows for easy and fast funding of the accounts and this has encouraged high trading volumes. Kraken also performs a Proof of Reserves Audits and it is one of the market leaders in cryptographically-verified auditing.
Kraken Fees
The platforms taker and marker fees are 26% and 16% respectively, however, the fees for a volume higher than 10,000,000, there are no maker fees and the taker fees drop to 0.10%. Unfortunately, Kraken charges deposit fees which vary with the fiat currency. The withdrawal fees also vary with the type of currency.
Is It Safe?
Since its inception, there has been no reports of a security breach nor cases of fraud. Besides this, Kraken uses cold storage techniques to ensure funds security using PGP/GPG encryption. Over and above this, Kraken incorporates 2-factor authentication, a global settings lock, and a master key to maximize on security.
Conclusion
There was a point when the platform was overwhelmed by the cryptocurrency explosion and this led to poor performance, with massive delays, among other problems. However, they have since resolved the issues with a major upgrade and it is able to handle higher trading volumes.
After you create your account, the number of verification documents you provide will determine the deposit, trading, and withdrawal limits you will have. They have also improved their customer support structures and you can contact them for help with your account and trades.