Kraken review

Kraken has been operating since 2011 without losing customer funds to an attacker. In a sector where the largest venues have all had at least one bad year, that record is the product.

You pay for it, and since July 2026 you pay more. Kraken restructured its schedule into cross-platform tiers on 9 July 2026 and Tier 1 now starts at 0.40% maker and 0.80% taker on Kraken Pro — up from 0.25%/0.40% — which is four to eight times what Binance or OKX charge a new account. The one thing that got better is how you escape Tier 1: your tier is now the better of your 30-day spot volume and your Assets on Platform, so a buy-and-hold user with a balance sitting on Kraken can reach a cheaper tier without trading their way there. The simple Instant Buy widget is worse again — the spread is wide enough that we consider steering beginners to Kraken Pro a duty rather than a tip.

Where Kraken wins outright is fiat. ACH, SEPA, FPS and wire are all supported, settlement is predictable, and the compliance posture means large transfers are less likely to be frozen mid-flight. It is also fully available to US residents, which removes Binance, Bybit, OKX and most of the tier-two venues from the comparison entirely.

Support is the other differentiator: real humans, reasonable response times, and a documentation set written for people who are not already traders.

We scored Kraken against the same nine criteria we apply to every exchange: fees, security, liquidity, features, ease of use, support, country availability, deposit options and long-term track record. Fee figures come from the exchange’s own published schedule (verified 2026-09-04), availability from its terms and support documentation, and the incident history from primary reporting and the exchange’s own disclosures.

This review was written by Vetted Exchanges Editorial Team and fact-checked by Vetted Exchanges Review Board. It is scheduled for re-verification by 2026-12-04, and sooner if Kraken changes its pricing, its country availability, or its security posture. Vetted Exchanges Editorial Team holds no position in Kraken or its token, and the affiliate relationship disclosed above played no part in the score.