Kraken is one of the largest crypto exchanges in the world. The company was founded in 2011 and had offices in San Francisco, California, New York City, and Luxembourg. In this Kraken review, we will be duscussing the exchange to know if it is safe to use.

Kraken Overview

Kraken is a cryptocurrency exchange with headquarters in San Francisco and other locations around the world. It was founded by Jesse Powell in 2011 and offers to trade between fiat currencies and cryptocurrencies.

Kraken is one of the oldest crypto exchanges in the world, but it has been struggling to maintain its position as a top tier exchange. In 2018, the exchange faced some problems with its banking partners and experienced temporary outages due to technical issues.

In 2019, Kraken announced that it was exploring options for an initial public offering (IPO) of its shares on Nasdaq or the London Stock Exchange (LSE). However, nothing has come from this announcement so far.

Kraken offers leveraged margin trading, as well as advanced order types such as stop-loss orders and iceberg orders. They also provide advanced charting tools, short selling and margin funding options for their users.

The main features of this platform include:

Security: Kraken offers two-factor authentication and an enhanced IP address whitelist to prevent unauthorized logins from foreign countries and support for hardware wallets like Ledger Nano S and KeepKey. It also has a proof-of-reserves audit system where it publishes its cryptocurrency holdings on a monthly basis to prove that they exist.

Fees: Kraken charges a 0.26% fee for buying or selling bitcoin, which is higher than most exchanges but lower than some other popular ones like Coinbase Pro (0.3%).

Trading pairs: Kraken offers trading pairs against USD, EUR, GBP, JPY and CAD fiat currencies, as well as a wide range of cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH), ripple (XRP) and litecoin (LTC).

How to open an account on Kraken

To open an account with Kraken, you need to provide your name, email address, phone number and address information. You will also be asked to provide your country of residence, birthday and social security number before moving forward with the KYC process. 

Step 1: Visit the Kraken website and click on “Register” in the top right corner.

Step 2: Enter your email address and password and agree to the terms and conditions. Then click on “Register”.

Step 3: You will receive an email with a link to verify your account within a few minutes. Click on the link and enter your details to confirm your email address. Then click on “Verify”.

Step 4: You are ready to trade!

Using Kraken’s advanced features

The Kraken website has a clean design and is easy to navigate. The site has several features that make it easy to trade and buy cryptocurrencies.

Kraken offers many advanced features that make it easy to execute more complex trades on its platform. These include:

Margin Trading: Kraken offers margin trading services on some cryptocurrency pairs with leverage of up to 5x. These pairs include BTC/EUR, ETH/EUR, XRP/EUR and others. You can trade on margin with as little as 1% initial deposit (but at least 0.01 BTC) to increase your return potential if you are right about the price movement of an asset and at risk of losing more than your initial investment if you are wrong. 

Stop-loss orders: This feature allows you to set a price at which you want your trades to stop losing money. It is helpful in protecting yourself from unexpected market movements that could lead to losses. You can set a stop-loss order using the order form found in your account dashboard’s “place order” tab.

Stop limit orders: With this feature, you can place an order that will only be executed if the price reaches a certain level, known as the limit price. For example, if you want your trade to sell at $100 but not before then, you can use a stop-limit order instead of simply selling at market price when the time comes. Stop limit orders can also be used with stop-loss orders. If prices move against your trade and trigger your stop-loss order by reaching $90, then it will only be executed if they reach $100 or above instead of immediately being sold at market price.

Kraken Mobile App

The Kraken app is available for Android and iOS devices. The app allows you to trade on the go, but it does not have a Web interface. This means that you cannot log into your account via a browser on your phone or tablet. 

The Kraken mobile app is a convenient way to access your Kraken account, trade and monitor your crypto portfolio. The app allows you to buy, sell and monitor your crypto transactions in real-time without having to go through the website or desktop application.

The mobile app offers a lot of the same features as the desktop version, but it also has some additional features that make it stand out from other cryptocurrency trading platforms:

Buy/Sell Digital Assets: The Kraken mobile app allows you to buy and sell digital assets from your phone 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You can also connect your bank accounts directly to the app and make deposits and withdrawals quickly and easily.

Leveraged Margin Trading: If you want to trade with leverage, the Kraken’s margin trading feature gives you the ability to do so with up to 5x leverage on top of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume (according to CoinMarketCap).

Watch Lists: Watch lists allow users to keep track of their favourite cryptocurrencies while they’re away from their computers. When they return back home, they can check on their coins’ prices at any time.

Order book: You can view all orders on the order book so that you can try to buy or sell at the best price possible. Orders are updated every 5 seconds so that you know what prices are being offered by other traders at all times.

Trade history: You will see all of your previous trades in the form of an overview page where you can see how much profit or loss was made on each trade and when they were executed. This feature makes it easy to check back on past trades so that you can learn from them going forward.

Easy-to-use interface: Like any other cryptocurrency exchange, Kraken’s mobile app comes with an intuitive user interface that makes trading easy even for beginner investors. The app allows you to quickly view your account balance, buy/sell cryptocurrencies, view your recent trades and more. In addition, there are several charting tools that allow you to analyze market trends before placing any orders on Kraken’s platform. 

Secure storage: Like its website counterpart, Kraken’s mobile app uses two-factor authentication (2FA) to ensure that your funds remain safe at all times. Suppose someone tries to log in using your username and password without activating 2FA first. In that case, they will be asked to provide a six-digit code sent via text message before they can access your account or make any withdrawals or deposits into it.

Pros and cons: Kraken review 

Kraken is a Bitcoin exchange that offers many advanced features such as margin trading and a wide variety of payment methods. Just like everything in life, it has its pros and cons.

Pros:

High liquidity: Kraken is one of the popular Bitcoin exchanges in the world, and for a good reason. It has high liquidity, which means that you can easily buy or sell your bitcoin.

Advanced trading tools: Kraken has a variety of advanced tools that allow you to buy and sell bitcoins at will, including margin trading and stop-loss orders.

Wide range of payment methods: In addition to bank transfers, Kraken accepts credit cards, PayPal and other forms of payment.

Easy to use interface: The Kraken website has an easy to use interface, making it easy for beginners to get started with trading cryptocurrencies

Cons:

Poor customer service: Kraken does not provide 24/7 customer service support via email or phone calls but instead only offers support through ticketing systems which can take days or weeks

The verification process takes longer than other exchanges like Binance or Bittrex.

Is Kraken safe?

Kraken has a good reputation and has been around for over seven years now, which is great news for any exchange that wants to be around for long-term success. 

Kraken is known for its fairness and transparency in the market. The company publishes all of its trading data on its website so that users can see exactly how much money they are making on every trade.

Kraken is generally considered safe to use, but like any other cryptocurrency exchange, there are certain risks associated with using it, such as being hacked.

The pros are much more than the cons, so overall, it is pretty safe to use.