Kraken Exchange

Kraken Overview

Kraken is a reputable and competitive exchange at the forefront of the blockchain revolution founded in 2011. Supported in 190 countries with 7 fiat options, offering 50+ tokens. Being a member myself since 2017, Kraken has come a long way in terms of user experience, and security has always been a top priority since day one.

Kraken offers two fluid trading app experiences, Kraken app is a simple and elegant interface for beginners and Kraken Pro, advanced trading for the pro traders. Kraken has been adding more staking options, currently at 10 tokens with competitive APR rates. The main downside for Canadians which impacts our rating is the lack of a simpler and fee-less fiat funding and withdrawal options, i.e. we would love to see Interac e-transfer funding options in the future.

Currencies

Kraken offers holding fiat funds in 7 different currencies including the Canadian dollar. Unfortunately steps to deposit CAD funds are not as straight forward, some incur additional fees, and can take 1-5 business days. We would love to see Interac e-transfer deposit option in the future, which is free and almost instant. A unique offering from Kraken is in-person deposits at your local Canada Post for those who are still wary of doing transactions online.

Kraken boasts over 70 cryptocurrencies available for purchase (location dependent), constantly adding to their catalogue. Purchasing crypto is simple and seamless with the Kraken app, although some tokens are not available depending on your country. Trading cryptocurrencies on the Kraken Pro app requires more transactions are there are limit CAD pairs, which requires converting your CAD to USD to access more trading pairs.

Services

In addition to a secure exchange platform to buy and sell cryptocurrencies, Kraken also offers some noteworthy features:

Fees

Fees for credit/debit card purchases are absorbent similar to other exchanges, sitting at 3.75% + EUR0.25. There is also a 0.9% Kraken fee for purchasing stablecoins with fiat and 1.5% for stablecoins purchases with other cryptocurrencies. Kraken also offers a 0.16%/0.26% Maker/Taker fee on Kraken Pro with a decreasing fees based on your 30-day trade volume.

Check out Kraken's fee-schedule for more details.

Overall Experiences

Kraken was one of my first exchanges I joined on my cryptocurrency journey, back in late 2017. My overall experience with Kraken is a positive one as the company's focus on security provides me piece of mind, from 2FA for logging in and transactions to whitelisting addresses before sending cryptocurrencies out. Another factor in recommending Kraken to my friends and family is the staking options available on their platform. I few things I would love to see is the staking integration available on their mobile app and a better depositing experience such as offering Interac e-transfer available at most Canadian exchanges.

Let your crypto holdings generate more wealth with 4-20% APR on your Cosmos, Polkadot, Ethereum, Cardano, Solana, Algorand and more by joining Kraken, a pioneer in the blockchain revolution.