Kraken Pro: Crypto Trading Reviews

I really WANT to like Kraken. But it’s really only for serious traders with a larger portfolio. I wanted to switch from Coinbase after reading reviews and exploring the website. I thought I did my homework but I can’t help but feel misled by Kraken’s fantastic marketing. The KYC and AML process is painful - it took a week to have my account verified (but I get the importance of this for customers in the USA considering the large deposit limits). You can only deposit USD via wire transfer. So that’s a 1-3 day waiting period and $25+ charge from your bank, and then another $5 from Kraken. I guess I assumed that Kraken would allow ACH/EFT deposits like Coinbase. KrakenPro is pretty good overall, and so is the desktop website. There’s a lot to like here. I would like to think that as I grow my portfolio and fall deeper into the rabbit hole of crypto, I will get more use out of Kraken. But for now, being somewhat new to the space, its not for me.

If you’re not a serious trader with a larger portfolio, stick to something more suitable for beginners like Coinbase. Beginners and retail investors with less than $10k will likely be disappointed.

This recent 2021 'pro-version' upgrade is a total downgrade. Kraken's website UI is awful, now KrakenPro can match. (Their other listed Kraken 'non-pro' app is used mostly for data collection.) The new app upgrade has no privacy feature so your balances are boldly displayed. Still no way to stake or send from KrakenPro . They've removed customization shortcut options in a severely unintuitive user interface, which is crucial for time-sensitive trading, yet somehow managed to incorporate ugly color schemes, and, wait for it: minimalist charts *sigh*. They also stopped displaying prices for restricted-region coins that I already own, so now I have to use other apps to see their market prices. 100% would reverse this install if I could. Crap job krapken. Stop hiring your friends and get some talent. New Users: due to Kraken's poor new management, things have taken a bad turn in many areas. Instability and finances are 2 words that do not belong together. Being a long time Kraken customer, I recommend new users seek other exchange options as there are better ones out there. Thank me later. Seasoned traders: If you see more green & red in one day than in all of Christmas, you will be annoyed with this upgrade.

Invest now for your future! Kraken has problems depositing your money into your account. Unfortunately the only way you can put your money in your account is to use a Fed wire from your bank. Even though your bank puts your account number on The fed wire if the person at the bank doesn’t enter your account number a specific way on the fedwire in the right box the money sent does not reach your account. You have to bug customer service then they tell you send the receipt and after they find your deposit they tell you they have to get their technical team involved to put your money in your account but there is no set time frame when this will happen. Basically a bunch of BS! They need to get their s - - t together this is a lot of money in my case 10k. Been waiting 2 days for tech. They say they processed the Money and are waiting their tech people. Not the way you want people to play with your hard earned money. They have no ACH transfers this is the only way. They need to look at how Robinhood lets you deposit money or any regular bank. Almost all banks allow online transfers free now.

I have to give it to the developers, you guys really make a smooth customer experience. I love the user interface, easily customizable and easy to digest as well. Friendly for beginners in crypto as well as those who are more familiar with crypto. The fees are EXPONENTIALLY lower than Coinbase, which is a huge, huge plus. If you’re looking for a reliable, safe exchange with low fees to get into crypto/maintain positions in crypto, choose Kraken!

The newest update was great! Love the design changes. If I had to ask for something, I’d love a widget ability (on iPhone) just so I can look at a few coins throughout the day without having to sign on/use FaceID to get into KrakenPro .

Another small detail that nobody probably cares about except me is that when you first open KrakenPro , it’s the old shade of purple as the background color. Then, it switches to the new, more vibrant shade of purple when the FaceID prompt comes up.

Very user friendly. Nice to look at, user interface is neat, well-organized, and intuitive, and they recently added a feature that allows you to deposit and withdraw fiat or crypto currency directly within KrakenPro which is incredibly convenient. The only downside—which is minor—is the lack of indicators or overlays for the charts. However the casual trader likely wouldn’t need the advanced tools that can be found on the desktop site, and technical limitations may well be the reason they haven’t been integrated so I won’t take any points away for that. Overall it’s an outstanding app. If you’re looking for a good entry point into the world of cryptocurrency trading, you’ll be hard pressed to find a better option.

The positives: there are fewer bugs in the new version (there used to be a bug where KrakenPro would occasionally freeze upon swiping up to submit an order) and Stop Limit orders are a welcome feature addition.

Those benefits are outweighed, in my opinion, by the decline in UI quality over the last couple of versions. Market trades were moved to a separate page, so I have to toggle between that page and the order book to get the information I need to make a trade. In the most recent update, the leverage option was changed from a selection to a drop down menu, so now it takes two taps instead of one to select leverage for a trade. For some trades, every second matters, so that extra selection makes a difference. The order page in general feels more crowded and clunky than it used to be.

Trading in KrakenPro used to be quick enough that it was an acceptable backup to trading on desktop, but recent changes have made it impossible to be an active trader in KrakenPro .

Kraken has been very useful for me. I live overseas for work and they allowed me to use a VPN due to my odd situation. Trading is no problem and the use of many securtiy features such as setting up KrakenPro so you cannot withdraw money, several authenications for each step of the process online along with email notifications has been very useful. My only downsides are the lack of coins and exchange fees. I hope there is a way to recommend more coins on the platform because it’s a pain to try and buy coins on other platforms and deal with exchange fees. The redeeming factor of the exchange fees is that they drop but I wish there was a method to keep it smaller or have none at all. Not to mention more coins would cause more traffic and more buyers at the same time because they can trust Kraken and leave other sites like Binance and etc. I believe it would greatly increase sales. I recommend KrakenPro to anyone who is starting.

Signed up and tried to get verified. KrakenPro is stuck at verification stage and they haven’t answered my emails yet. KrakenPro is saying verification should take less than 5 mins, but it has been two days already. I know its a busy time. But why making an app when you can not predict its demand and cause down time and inconvenience? Its not right to waste so much time on signing up and then let the customers wait days to get simple things setup.

I use coinbase but i wanted a specific coin that coinbase doesn’t carry, so i signed up with them to get that coin, but so far no luck.

By the way, 24/7 support means 24/7 live chat/phone and etc. if your chat is a virtual idiot who reads the faq page, its not 24/7 support anymore.

And regarding KrakenPro its a bit hard to operate it because you have to do most things on desktop website and once you have transferred money to your account, you can start buying and selling on KrakenPro . I find this very inconvenient compared to other apps.

I also think im In Mars when I'm in KrakenPro . You sign in with api key only, there is no user/pass!!! When you want to deposit money, you cant do ACH or debit or credit card. You have to sign up with another company and fund that company and then fund your kraken. You can also request for a verification to be able to wire money which mine is still pending. You have done everything to make the funding as hard as possible. I don’t know why.

I have used a few different CEX’s and Kraken is by far my favorite. It’s trading tools have always been incredible and now it’s user interface matches that quality.

Their customer service, however, is what puts them head and shoulders above the rest in my opinion. In my earlier days of crypto I reached out to them many times. Sometimes with specific questions, other times with specific problems. They were always timely, informative, and helpful. Even when I had made a mistake, they did what they could to correct my error.

I highly recommend using Kraken whether you’re just getting in or have been in the crypto space.

I used Kraken in 2017 for my first real dip into crypto. Shortly after opening my account and transferring in some money and crypto I ran into an issue where my funds disappeared. The 4 week process of dealing with customer service in an attempt to recover my crypto while the market was “mooning” was so bad I thought I would never come back to their exchange. Fast forward to 2021, I decided to give them another chance and realized I had lost my 2fa and master key. In this case I was able to recover my account in the same day with only two quick emails. I’m very impressed with how far kraken customer service has come and the tools and charting are some of the best imho... I’m back! Let’s stack sats!

It appears to me folks are getting paid to leave poor reviews in this platform. Probably coming from CB. Coinbase is terrible. The support never responds and they close your account for now reason. There is a serious lack
Of accountability and transparency with Coinbase.

Kraken has been awesome. The support is stellar and timely and their staking interest is much better than CB who overcharges for everything. Also, Kraken literally has 10 times the security features as CoinBase. Of you want a platform that doesn’t let you truly trade and overcharges you for everything stick to CB. Kraken may be a less sophisticated interface but it’s 10 times the solution CB is.

I have been waiting for a week for their customer service support to get back to after I transferred money to my bank and my money still hasn’t gotten there. Their chat bot that is supposed to help is never online, have sent numerous emails and heard nothing.

I was also liquidated for all of the ethereum, cardano and chainlink I had on KrakenPro as a result of the glitch that caused ethereum to drop to $700. I had a long trade open and would have been fine if not for that sudden crash that only happened on kraken and no other exchange. As a result they took all the money I put in. And I repeat, this is the only exchange that has that drop to $700. It has made me extremely hesitant to trade on there again. They also said they were offering refunds to help people that had been hit by massive loses but this is a lie, I did not receive any kind of help or refund from them.

I currently use several apps for crypto and I really want to like kraken due to all the positive online reviews and seems like where the more serious traders do business. However, in my first experience it’s an absolute nightmare and expensive to fund through a wire transfer. Their customer support answered me promptly in chat and walked me through the wire transfer setup process. Customer service was very helpful and spent a decent amount of time solving my problem which ended up being me just misunderstanding the setup since Texas only has one option. All in all KrakenPro does what it is meant to do well, my only reason for not giving 5 stars is due to not having other funding options.

This is literally the worst app for cryptocurrency! That is not an over exaggeration. One there is no point of contact. You never want to put your money in a place where you cannot reach anyone! The chat is always busy. It takes weeks to get a hold of someone to email you back! There is no phone number to call! If you can’t get a hold of who has your money you don’t need to deal with them!

Second, they don’t like you do wire transfers. This is how they make money! $25 per transaction because they won’t allow bank transfers, which are free! There is another sign not to put your money in this horrible app.

Third, this is the worst app to navigate! There always new pop up and those pop up sign you out your account then you have to go back to your account to sign in and start over. It confusing and frustrating.

Fourth, you can’t create an account on KrakenPro ! This is stupid! The point of having an app is having immediate access to the information you need. Most things you have to do on a computer.

Fifth, it takes weeks to set up your account! Each step of verification takes days! One day for a starter verification. 5-6 business days for the intermediate verification and a week at least for Pro. And you can’t complete the next verification until the first one is done.

Please stay away! Kraken steals from its customers! I opened a new account two weeks ago and have been having nothing but problems from day one. The format is not user friendly. It’s literally a mess trying to navigate. They use multiple windows to open with redirected links. You get 2 courtesy humans. Every correspondence following is with a BOT! You can or get a person! I wired 7k to my account but was locked out of my account because they said I have a broken USB! It was new! I told them I have a YubiKey. They told me it was broken! They made me fill out 3 tickets and to wait for an email. I did what they said. I waited a day and they never sent me and email! I contacted the bot that told me it was Googles fault that I didn’t receive an email! They have not sent any new emails! I still cannot get access to my wired funds! They just stole 7k and I didn’t even get to purchase anything!!! STAY AWAY!!!!

I used Coinbase and Coinbase Pro (formerly GDAX) for a long time and eventually decided to try out Kraken/Kraken Pro. The tools and insights are still there with Kraken. One benefit that you don’t hear about—because it’s never a guarantee—is best price execution. In those moments when I’ve wanted to buy a small amount of crypto and not worry about calibrating a limit order, Kraken’s market orders (whether Kraken or Kraken Pro) generally seem to execute at the best market price on its exchange. That says something about Kraken’s technology but also the company’s ethical standards. Last but not least—on the topic of limit orders—I love having the ability to fine tune my limit orders. Kraken Pro offers that.

I found Kraken through a web search, I thought they looked professional and simple for new traders. I was wrong! I wanted to invest a small amount as my first investment. I sent a fiat wire transfer from my bank to their MVB. My fault I forgot to write the reference number. I immediately called customer chat, to rectify this and was told it’s no problem. Just give us the number and we will manually input it. So after almost 2 weeks! or so of no response. I Called chat, them telling me the money can’t be deposited until I jump through more hoops. By this time I’m beyond frustrated. So I’m asked to take a “Hostage picture “ of me holding a note with a valid ID. Which now takes more time of not investing on the site. I finally vented in a email sent from Kraken. I woke up the next morning seeing a new email. Saying “do to security reasons “ we can’t deposit your funds and they will be returned. Terrible company! Never again

I love the Kraken newsletters that I receive daily exciting informative content and educational content is top notch, however coming from the option/futures world I am use to speaking to a live person from the trade desk, moreover emails are answered in most cases instantly. I have been trying to complete my registration for 2 weeks web base platform is down only displaying 1/3 page specifically bottom third. I stayed in the queue line for 2 hours waiting to speak with a representative and my position in line never moved, beforehand the queue moved 3 spots afterwards nothing. Kraken can take the playbook from equity/derivative brokerages that offer live support teams to round out their customer service.

Good app. Lots of colors, numbers and choices of how to display them. Certain buttons you press change how you see the numbers and colors and sometimes you can input your own numbers. Very colorful and full of numbers.

Fabulous pointed, squiggly lines which also have different colors sometimes point up or sometimes down and stretch across a scrolling grid and the pointed squiggles seem to coincide with the colors and numbers. Rising numbers and rising pointed lines and falling number and falling lines in two different colors. Red and Green. What colors!

There are also Words that are just as colorful and also in an alphabetical sort of way.

Colored letters, many times in groups of three consonants, are colored and hard to pronounce but have a pretty colorful shape next them. What a sight! Unpronounceable letter combinations in different COLORS with colorful shapes beside them!

It seems though that the attention grabbing, inter-related, colors and numbers and also the squiggly lines are frenzied. I have to cool it after while and do something else. Largely good though in a colorful way.

If you want the ability to actively trade and use all of the traditional tools and functionality you would typically get with a platform like TOS or TradingView then Kraken is definitely the best available (at least to US residents). The fact that Kraken also offered some of the lost competitive staking rates on coins like DOT, ADA, ETH, XTZ, etc is a huge bonus. Their rates are really strong and at the high end of the range when compared across the industry. KrakenPro is super user friendly and does pretty much anything you’ll likely need it to, and the web based platform is just as good if not better. Hope this is helpful.

Everything works flawlessly with ONE exception. There is a delay in updating your balances and positions when you first open KrakenPro . Delay is about 10 seconds, give or take. Not a huge deal but worth noting. There have been times when I pulled up KrakenPro when I first awake in the morning, where it shows me my long position was doing really well (for example), only to change 10 seconds later to show that this position had actually been closed out over night. I would give KrakenPro 5 stars if they improve that refresh rate, but otherwise no complaints.

Kraken is the way to go guys. I did the research and tried out all the most popular US crypto exchanges for weeks. Compared to Coinbase and the others, Kraken offer several more of the best crypto coins you’ll want, their fees are among the lowest their and their user interface is the best I saw for intermediate to advanced users.

Don’t get duped by Coinbase charging you 1.99% deposit fees, 2% “spread fees” for exchanging coins and only offering a few of the best crypto coins. Coinbase altogether or upgrade to Kraken. Trust me, you’ll be glad you did.

Hey There, I give this an excellent review . Since it has various volatile Cryptocurrency and the ability of exchanging it against FIAT instantly . I’m using Kraken since 2017 or 2016 but up still today it’s of great use and provide good feeds and live value of the exchange pairs . It’s being quite easy back in 2017 to verify my account. Experimenting FIAT deposit and withdrawal is still on the horizon .

3 stars because KrakenPro needs to be fixed to show current orders placed. Placed an order can’t find it so placed another order, denied for insufficient funds because the first order was placed but never showed up on KrakenPro under open positions. Also all current month past orders are not showing up either. Otherwise it’s a fairly easy app to understand once you know how to trade. Just wished they offered more alt coins, over time???

Been using Kraken for a while, glad to finally have mobile access via official channel. Most of my qualms with KrakenPro were addressed in the latest update. The only thing I wish it had was better portfolio view options, like changes in price, profit/loss tracking, the ability to liquidate from the portfolio view, etc.

A step in the right direction, still a lot of room for improvement.

Not a clear design and you really have to work to trade on KrakenPro. It took me a bit to how leverage trading worked on the website. KrakenPro have the numbers and letters cut off. Not a clear way to trade you shorts and Long’s. The website I give a 3.7. KrakenPro I gave it a generous 2. Star rating. KrakenPro is not fit to scale to phones. Plus not being user friendly. Wish I could rate it better..... Though I always grade things accordingly!

There are flaws with their interface that should have been fixed years ago, and the fact this had not happened, suggests that maybe this decent exchange is playing against their customers, no matter how ‘decent’ they may be.

Great to see krakens commitment to enhancing their platform and providing a mobile friendly app that traders are looking for. Great to see major improve the toward the UI and making it easy to understand for beginner traders getting into this space.

The mobile app looks great so far! Dark mode option would be great. And you’ll probably want to synchronize the terminology used in the mobile app with the desktop browser app.

Example: The ‘Open Positions’ page in the mobile app uses helpful terms like ‘short & long’ but the desktop browser version does not mention these terms.

I’m sure it’s on the roadmap, but overall it would be nice to have similar experiences between the browser and mobile apps wherever possible.

Keep up the good work!

Kraken is consistently one of the top exchanges in the US because they take your personal security seriously. They have done an amazing job with KrakenPro which is beautiful, intuitive and easy to navigate. It’s a feast for the eyes and a pleasure to use.

I’ve tried all of the major crypto trading apps and this one is the best by far. On no other app could I trade on leverage, and with kraken there is a 5x leverage option. Also the spreads are super tight and there’s great liquidity whenever I need it. Great job Kraken team.

Love the features but there is definitely a lot that needs to be improved from a responsiveness standpoint , I use Kraken for low risk positions because is not reliable enough , being that said if they improve this I could see myself using it more often as the UI is very crisp and I love their margin features.

Can be slow to calculate position gains on leverage trades, but outside of that it’s so convenient and user friendly. Feels safe too since you only give it the access you choose, no touching of funds, solely buy or sell

Every other time I open KrakenPro I get the same error despite not using my API key for anything else. I just open KrakenPro , try to refresh my positions or cancel an order and place another, and it tells me I’ve exceeded the rate.

This is deeply flawed and tremendously annoying since it’s the only mobile interface for Kraken at the moment.

Love the new app! Now I am able to monitor and trade on my account with ease 24 hours a day. KrakenPro is super intuitive to use and very responsive. This being their official app means security is paramount.

Great work Kraken!