Kraken Review 2026: Fees, Pros, Cons, & Safety

Kraken Overview

What Is Kraken?

Kraken is one of crypto’s oldest and most trusted exchanges, launched back in 2011 – when most people were still figuring out what Bitcoin even was.

While plenty of early exchanges disappeared or got hacked, Kraken’s reputation has stayed spotless: Kraken-managed custodial wallets have never been breached since it was founded in 2011.

Today, it’s a full-service platform offering 500+ cryptocurrencies, plus stocks and ETFs for eligible US users.

You can choose between a simple interface for beginners or the advanced Kraken Pro for serious traders, with features like staking, margin, and futures trading built right in.

Buying crypto with Kraken is easy – you can use a debit card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, or go the traditional route with a bank transfer.

For steady investors, Kraken even supports auto-investing so you can dollar-cost average without thinking about it.

Most importantly, Kraken is fully regulated in the US and regularly publishes third-party verified Proof-of-Reserves audits.

These let anyone confirm that user assets are fully backed and accounted for.

Kraken Key Features

1. Instant Purchases: Buy crypto instantly using a debit card, Apple Pay, or Google Pay in seconds.
2. Auto-Investing: Kraken lets you automate your buys on a schedule. Set it and forget it, DCA style.
3. Kraken Pro: Kraken’s advanced trading interface for experienced traders. Candlestick charts, low fees, special order types, and more.
4. Margin + Futures: Use up to 5x leverage on spot markets, or get up to 50x leverage on perpetual futures contracts for over 350 crypto assets.
5. Staking + Auto-Earn: Put your idle coins to work with staking, or switch on Auto-Earn to automatically earn a yield on your balance.
6. Kraken Institutional: Big players get concierge-style service, including an over-the-counter (OTC) trading desk, custody, and custom reporting.
7. Stocks (xStock): US traders (excluding ME and NY) can buy 11,000+ different stocks and ETFs right alongside their crypto.
8. Kraken Mobile App: Kraken has mobile apps for their beginner and advanced trading platforms.
9. Krak App: Kraken’s global money app for crypto and cash payments. Send, spend, and earn instantly for free – faster than your bank.

Kraken Fees

Kraken’s fees are pretty straightforward once you get the hang of them.

Instant buys are the pricey option – you’ll pay about 1% plus whatever your payment method adds.

If you’re using Kraken Pro (which is also free for everyone), fees drop significantly and become competitive with other top exchanges.

Kraken Pro uses a maker/taker model, which basically just means you pay lower fees if you add to the order book, rather than make an order that executes immediately.

There’s also Kraken+, a $4.99/month membership that gives you zero-fee trading on up to $20,000 in monthly volume.

If you want the full breakdown, you can check out Kraken’s detailed fee schedule here.

Our Expert Review of Kraken

In this hands-on review, I decided to go through the full Kraken experience myself.

That includes everything from signing up, to testing its core features like buying, trading, staking, and exploring Kraken Pro.

Let’s get right into it!

Signing Up to Kraken

Signing up for Kraken was smooth, but definitely thorough.

You start with the usual basics (email, password, and country). Then after verifying your email, the platform dives into the full know-your-customer (KYC) process.

This includes verifying your identity with a photo ID.

There are a lot of questions, but that’s part of what makes Kraken trustworthy. It’s clearly built for compliance, not shortcuts.

The whole process is smooth, and the ID verification is automated. Simply upload your ID, wait a few moments, and you’re in.

My entire onboarding process took me about 5 minutes, from start to finish.

A cool touch that I liked is that Kraken lets you pick your path right away.

Keep it simple for quick trading, or jump straight into the advanced interface if you’re ready to get serious.

Trading on Kraken

Let’s take a look at the beginner-friendly simplified interface first.

My initial thoughts were that it is genuinely well thought-out.

When you log in, you’re greeted with a clean dashboard that shows your total portfolio value, the live prices of coins on your watchlist, and a big Buy/Sell box that you can’t miss.

It’s all laid out simply, with no clutter and no confusion.

Even as a beginner, you can place different types of orders without feeling lost.

You’ve got market buys, limit orders (which Kraken calls “custom orders”), and even recurring buys if you want to set up automatic purchases.

Personally, I love the recurring buy feature, since I’m a huge fan of the dollar cost averaging (DCA) strategy.

This means you’re able to automatically stack your favorite coin every week or month, which is one of the smartest, most hands-off investing moves you can make.

You won’t see candlestick charts or order books here, though – and that’s on purpose. Kraken keeps this default interface stripped down to just what new users need.

It’s simple, friendly, and confidence-boosting – exactly what a beginner trading space should feel like.

Buying Crypto on Kraken (How It Works)

You’ve got two main lanes into buying crypto with Kraken’s simplified interface:

1. Instant buy
2. Deposit, then buy.

If you’re feeling speedy, Kraken lets you buy instantly with a bank card (Visa, Mastercard), or through Apple Pay, Google Pay, and even PayPal if it’s supported for your region.

That’s great for small purchases or when you want to move fast.

If you want higher limits or want to fund bigger trades, you can deposit via bank transfers (like ACH, wires, or SEPA).

Deposits via these methods are slower, but give you more breathing room. Once your funds hit your account, you can use them to place orders.

It’s important to note that some payment methods come with hold periods or limits, to keep your funds safe.

Kraken Pro

Now for the advanced user interface, Kraken Pro.

Kraken Pro is where things get serious – and a lot more fun if you’re into charts, data, and deep control.

It’s stacked with all the tools a pro could want.

It’s also cheaper to trade with, but you can only use funds that you’ve loaded into your account first (no instant purchases with a bank card or Apple Pay here).

You get a full candlestick chart setup, live order books, and an order panel with more choices than you knew were possible.

That includes limit, market, stop loss, take profit, trailing stop, even “iceberg” orders (which hide part of your trade size from the market – very slick).

On top of all that, there’s also a sweet “Analytics” tab that gives you deeper insight into what’s actually happening under the hood.

This includes charts that show rolling volatility, trade counts, volume spikes, order book imbalance, and even aggressor differential (basically, who’s hitting the buy or sell side harder).

Super nerdy, but it’s genuinely useful – the kind of data that helps you trade smarter.

Overall, Kraken Pro feels like a proper trading desk wrapped in a clean, modern interface.

Kraken Asset Support

When it comes to US-based centralized exchanges, Kraken’s got one of the biggest crypto selections available – with over 500 different cryptocurrencies to choose from.

Not only that, but if you’re in the US (except Maine and New York), Kraken has rolled out commission-free trading on 11,000+ US stocks and ETFs, and also offers tokenized stocks in certain countries via its feature “xStocks”.

On the fiat side, Kraken supports multiple currencies: USD, EUR, CAD, GBP, CHF, AUD, JPY, and more.

Margin and Futures Trading

For those of you that are seasoned traders with a ton of experience, Kraken Pro’s Margin and Futures trading features give you the leverage you need.

Heads up: Leveraged trading can amplify both profits AND losses – meaning things can go south fast if the market moves against you.

Never trade with more leverage (or money) than you’re willing to lose.

Margin Trading

Margin trading lets you borrow funds from Kraken to open spot positions larger than your balance would normally allow.

Kraken’s interface makes it pretty straightforward:

Just toggle on “margin,” choose your market, pick your leverage (2x, 3x, 4x, or 5x), and go long or short.

After that, you can monitor your open positions, collateral, and margin health in real time.

Margin trading on Kraken is available to most Kraken Pro users outside the US, UK, and Canada. If you’re in the US or Australia, you’ll just need to meet a few extra eligibility checks first.

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to access the feature myself for any screenshots, since I wasn’t in a supported area.

Futures Trading

If 5x leverage isn’t enough, no need to worry.

Kraken Pro has you set with perpetual futures trading, with up to 50x leverage on contracts for over 350 different crypto assets.

Trading fees on these futures start at 0.02% on maker orders and 0.05% on taker orders, which is competitive with other top futures platforms like Binance Futures and Hyperliquid.

Kraken splits its futures trading into two lanes – one for the world, one for the US.

If you’re outside the US, you can trade perpetual futures unless you’re in places like Australia, Canada, or the UK (for retail users).

If you’re in the States, you’ll use Kraken Derivatives US, which sticks to CME-listed crypto futures through a fully regulated partner.

For the full details on geographical restrictions, check out this Kraken Support page.

Staking + Auto-Earn

When it comes to earning passive income on your crypto assets, Kraken also has you covered.

You can earn up to 22% APY by staking eligible coins – everything from Ethereum, Solana, Polkadot, and Cosmos to newer names like Celestia and Injective.

There are two main ways to earn: Flexible (Auto-Earn) and Bonded Staking.

• Auto-Earn: The effortless option, where your idle assets automatically generate rewards without any lock-ups. You can trade, withdraw, or use them as collateral anytime.
• Bonded Staking: Offers higher returns, but temporarily locks your crypto for a set period (anywhere from a few days to a few weeks depending on the coin).

Rewards are paid out weekly and show up automatically in your account, with full visibility into your staking history.

The whole process is smooth and simple: Just buy or deposit an eligible asset, switch on “Earn”, and you start earning.

Just bear in mind that this convenience comes with a fee – between 12% to 30% of your staking rewards goes to Kraken, depending on the asset you’re staking.

Auto-Earn isn’t available in the US, and returns might vary by region – so always check the latest terms on Kraken before staking.

Kraken Mobile app

Kraken’s mobile app onboarding confused me for a second at first, but the reason made sense.

This was all because I didn’t expect there to be multiple Kraken Apps available.

Rather than trying to cram everything in one app, Kraken has split its different interfaces into separate apps:

Whether you prefer the beginner-friendly Kraken interface or the Pro interface, there’s a totally different app you need to download.

Once installed, each of these gives you a mobile-friendly version of basically everything you’d find on their respective desktop versions, for on-the-go trading.

The standard Kraken app was pretty impressive to use.

It’s super user-friendly, has slick interfaces, and even some mobile-specific features – like tapping and holding the price chart to set a buy or sell order with speed.

It’s also super convenient with support for Apple Pay and Google Pay, letting you make quick crypto purchases from your phone, whenever the opportunity arises.

You can download the Kraken App of your choice here.

Kraken Non-Custodial Wallet

In addition to the apps above, there’s also a separate non-custodial Kraken Wallet App, which isn’t tied to your exchange account.

Think of it like Coinbase Wallet – it’s Kraken’s DeFi wallet for managing your own crypto and connecting to Web3 apps, while keeping full control of your keys.

Krak App (The Global Money App)

Krak’s kind of like Venmo, but built for the global crowd.

You can send money instantly to 160+ countries, skip the transfer fees, and even earn a bit of yield on what you keep in the app.

It’s got the same easy, chat-style feel – just with more reach and a touch of crypto built in.

Kraken Customer Service

Kraken says it offers 24/7 customer support in 13+ languages, but in practice it's not overly quick.

Their main Support Hub is easy to navigate – there’s a search bar, plenty of help articles, and even an AI-generated summary that usually answers common questions pretty fast.

For most basic issues, that’s all you’ll need.

If you want to talk to someone, though, you have to scroll down to the “Contact Us” section to find the chat or email options.

The chatbot replies quickly, but it’s not a real person. When I requested a human agent around midday, I didn’t get a reply by the end of the day.

I did, however, get a helpful reply within 36 hours to the email ticket I submitted.

Overall, Kraken’s help resources are solid, but if you’re expecting instant, human responses, you might be waiting a while.

Who’s Kraken For?

• Hands-off Beginners: If you want to get into crypto without living on trading charts, Kraken makes it easy. Set up recurring buys to DCA and use Auto-Earn to make some passive yield – no need to babysit your account.
• Advanced Traders: If you’re an experienced trader, Kraken Pro gives you access to proper charting, analytics, leverage, and futures – everything you’d expect from a full trading desk.
• US Investors Who Want It All: If you’re in the US (except ME or NY), Kraken lets you trade both crypto and 11,000+ stocks and ETFs in one place.

Who’s it Not For?

• People Who Want to Stay Anonymous: If you’re trying to avoid KYC or keep your identity private, Kraken’s not the place. It’s fully regulated, which means ID verification is non-negotiable. If you prefer to stay anon, check out our very own Milk Road Swap ;)
• People Who Need Hand-Holding Support: Kraken’s help center is solid, but if you expect quick, one-on-one help from a human at all times, replies can take a while.

Kraken Alternatives

Kraken vs. Coinbase

Kraken and Coinbase are both US-based, beginner-friendly exchanges with pro modes for serious traders.

Kraken edges out Coinbase with lower fees, more transparent instant-buy pricing, and a bigger global reach.

Kraken also has a much more comprehensive futures platform, while Coinbase focuses on fewer assets and institutional traders for its futures offering.

Kraken vs. Gemini

Gemini is another US-based exchange, but it’s younger and much smaller than Kraken and Coinbase.

Although Gemini is solid, it supports much fewer assets than Kraken and much fewer countries, and charges higher instant-buy fees.

That’s 1.49% plus a 1% convenience fee – although its advanced trading fees start a little lower than Kraken’s.

Kraken vs. Binance US

Binance US is a solid choice for American traders, but its reach and selection don't match Kraken’s.

Kraken supports 190+ countries and 500+ assets, while Binance US only serves domestic users with around 180 coins.

Binance has cheaper fees on major pairs, but Kraken wins on global access, regulation, and overall reliability.

Is Kraken Safe to Use?

Kraken is one of the oldest crypto exchanges still standing – founded way back in 2011 by Jesse Powell, who was obsessed with transparency before it was cool.

What’s wild is that, in all that time, Kraken has never lost user funds to a hack – something almost no other major exchange can say.

The company’s based in Cheyenne, Wyoming, which has become a hub for crypto-friendly regulation, making it one of the safest and most compliant places you can trade.

Proof-of-Reserves & Licensing

Kraken’s Proof of Reserves is its way of publicly showing receipts – letting users verify their crypto is fully backed, 1:1, by real assets.

Every few months, an independent auditor checks Kraken’s balances across $BTC, $ETH, $SOL, and others (all slightly overcollateralized, like 101–105%).

You can even log in and verify your own funds via a cryptographic Merkle ID – no blind trust needed.

It’s not flawless, but it’s one of the most transparent systems in crypto.

Kraken’s also registered with FinCEN and licensed globally, keeping things squeaky clean and regulation-friendly.

Kraken’s Security

Kraken takes security seriously, with the majority of user funds kept in cold storage with 24/7 surveillance.

Kraken is also fully certified with ISO/IEC and SOC 2 Type 1 standards – the gold standard for cybersecurity – and even runs its own Security Labs team and bug bounty program to continuously stress-test their systems.

On the user side, you get all the usual measures tools: 2-factor authentication, PGP-encrypted emails, and withdrawal address confirmations.

Final Thoughts On Kraken

Kraken has earned its place as one of the most trusted names in crypto, and for good reason.

It’s been around since 2011, has never lost user funds to a hack, and continues to back that up with public Proof-of-Reserves audits.

Whether you’re a total beginner or a seasoned trader, Kraken gives you the tools to match your level.

That means a clean, simple interface for quick buys, or the full-blown Kraken Pro platform with advanced charts, margin, and futures trading up to 50x.

It’s not flawless – instant buys cost more, support can be slow, and some features (like stocks) aren’t available everywhere.

But overall, Kraken stands out for its transparency, regulation-friendly setup, and huge asset selection.

If you want a secure, long-term exchange that’s both powerful and proven, Kraken’s still one of the best options in 2025.

Kraken Frequently Asked Questions