Kraken is the San Francisco-based world’s largest global bitcoin exchange. The clients of Kraken trade in US dollars, Canadian dollars, British Pounds, and Japanese Yen other than all cryptocurrencies that also include Ethereum (Ether). It was also rated the best and safest bitcoin exchange platform by independent news media.
What is Kraken?
This platform was founded in the year 2011 and was the very first exchange platform that influenced bitcoin margin trading. Kraken platform is trusted by thousands of users and traders all around the world.
The Kraken exchange platform is funded and supported by SBI Investment, Money Partners Group, Blockchain Capital, Hummingbird Ventures, and many others. People thought that Kraken only supports the trading of Bitcoin currency but it is quite the opposite. This platform supports the trading of almost all the crypto assets including Monero and Ether.
As discussed above, Kraken is a cryptocurrency exchange platform, meaning that this platform matches orders from the clients willing to purchase crypto assets with orders from clients who are interested in selling their cryptocurrencies and the other way around.
People often use this platform as a wallet or bank. Broker, investment fund, advisor, shop, and whatnot.
Does Kraken Provide A Personal Wallet Service?
Kraken offers its customers the opportunity to deposit funds in our corporate cold and hot wallets for safety and at the same time, the funds can be utilized for exchanging or trading crypto assets. This shows that Kraken does not offer personal wallet services.
What is Different in Kraken?
The Kraken offers a full-of-new features platform for people and firms who are crazy about cryptocurrencies. Not just this but it offers a variety of accounts that offers everything you need for trading and investing. In addition to all this, it brings you an improved and modified order system to execute the platform smoothly without lacking. It also brings you trading tools that include all stop-loss and profit-taking types, control and margin-based trading, and mechanized strategy trading. Last but not the least, it offers a huge pool of cryptocurrencies to trade that makes Kraken stand among the leaders in the crypto exchange platform.
Why Kraken Is Risky?
Since the very start, this platform has taken the world by storm but after a few years of its launch, it faced some major issues. In May of 2017, along with another exchange platform of bitcoin, Poloniex, it was attacked by Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) which led the entire platform to a huge loss. This incident made huge waves in the market and was followed by a class-action lawsuit filed against the Kraken. This became a major blow to Kraken's image and position in the market.
Pros and Cons of Kraken
Crypto assets are undoubtedly leading the financial world right now. Below are some significant pros and cons listed for you.
Pros
High Security
One of the most common and vital advantages is high security. Since its launch, this platform has never been hacked. It stresses majorly on heavy Security Protocol and Security Labs Initiative. Its participants and users need two-factor authentication (2FA) for all log-ins.
Customer Satisfaction
The majority of the cryptocurrency exchange platforms have a no-frills approach and do not have any type of customer support teams to maintain the charges. On the other hand, Kraken is one of those few exchange platforms that have a complete customer support team. As per the user’s feedback, this platform not only responds to the issues but also resolves them within a 2 weeks span.
Negligible Charges
A Kraken Pro account offers the cheapest charges for crypto trading which is just 0.16% (maker) and 0.26% (taker) for a 20-day trading size. To apply for Kraken Pro Account, you will first have to get yourself verified as an intermediate account.
Cons
Less Number of Coins
As compared to other larger crypto exchange platforms such as Bitcoin Trading Software, Crypto.com, and Coin Hako, Kraken has a smaller pool of coins that users can use in trading. For traders that require bulk, this is not the right opportunity.
High Fees
People who are just beginners, having a starter Kraken Account, you will be asked to pay higher Instant Buy Fees at 1.5% for every transaction.
Conclusion
Kraken was built 10 years ago. It was founded by CEO Jesse Powell and owned by a parent company known as Payward Inc. it is just an online exchange and not any sort of broker or investment fund like banks. It is best known and recognized for its high security.
