Kraken is a cryptocurrency exchange platform founded in San Francisco in 2011. It allows you to acquire bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies using fiat money. It is the platform with the highest volume of transactions in Euros.
It has approval from various regulatory entities around the world. It is a pioneer company in the exchange of cryptocurrencies. Therefore, it has managed to remain one of the best exchanges in the market. Many users use it because of its trust and loyalty services.
What makes it different from the others?
Kraken's main distinction is how minimal and simple it is. This does not make it stop being a professional exchange. It actually makes the trading experience much more intiutive.
Some get confused when they start trading on Kraken, especially bitcoin because the ISO code used by Kraken is XBT, rather than the popular BTC. Its adoption has not been very popular.
One of the advantages is its inclusion of exchange pairs in fiat currencies. The most popular pairs include (XBT / EUR and XBT / USD).
Characteristics
Converting from fiat to highly liquid cryptocurrencies: allows you to trade with more than 32 cryptocurrencies in more than 140 markets and 6 fiat currencies: US dollars (USD), euros (EUR), Canadian dollars (CAD), Japanese yen (JPY), British pounds (GBP) and Swiss francs (CHF).
Dark pool: if you are looking for an exchange with an invisible order book, don't keep looking. With the dark pool, each trader only knows his orders and can trade anonymously without revealing his interests to the rest of the traders.
OTC (Over The Counter) service: traders dealing with high volumes can use the private OTC service.
24/7 Customer Support - Offers 24/7 global customer support service in case you have any questions or problems using the exchange.
Margin and Futures Trading - Offers margin trading of cryptocurrencies with up to 5x leverage.
Forex trading: in addition to trading cryptocurrencies, you can also exchange your fiat currencies in any of the six available.
Secure and Reliable Platform - Kraken is the industry leader in security. It is an exchange that has never been hacked, so you can sleep peacefully while leaving your money in their custody.
Security
Kraken takes security very seriously. Its platform only crashed once (in January 2018) since its launch in 2011, and it was to make updates to the system.
From that update, a wide variety of measures were taken to reduce the risk of theft of its clients' funds, including the following:
Transfer of new deposits directly to offline “cold” wallets, which are physically isolated from any online system.
Storage of a small amount of funds in semi-cold wallets, which are kept in protected machines with locked units.
Storage of the vast majority of cryptocurrencies in cold wallets. Only the funds necessary to maintain liquidity are kept in online wallets.
Encryption of all data and wallets in data centers.
According to the Exchange Security Report 2.0 report carried out by the ICO Rating agency, Kraken is the most secure exchange in the entire sector, with a score of A.
Easy to use
In general, the interface of the platform is user-friendly and easy to navigate.
In this sense, you can easily find what you are looking for.
Customer Service
It has a complete support center that will provide answers to all your questions. But if not, you can contact the customer service team 24 hours a day through their website.
Conclusion
I recommend Kraken because it is a completely legitimate cryptocurrency exchange, plus super low fees. Suitable for both beginners and advanced traders. Its wide variety of features, low fees, clear user interface, and liquidity are some of its attractions. However, it is not the best option if you are looking for a place to buy cryptocurrencies quickly, since it does not accept deposits using bank cards.
It is a reliable and secure exchange; however, its popularity has declined in the face of the appearance of more attractive options.