What is Kraken and how does it work?

Kraken is a crypto exchange where people buy, sell and trade digital assets, and in some places stocks and futures too. It was founded in 2011, making it one of the older exchanges still running. Kraken runs two main products, a simple app for everyday buying and Kraken Pro for active traders. If you are new to the idea, our guide on what a crypto exchange is covers the basics.

What is the difference between Kraken and Kraken Pro?

The standard Kraken app is aimed at beginners. It supports market, limit and recurring buys, and it charges a 1% fee on instant and recurring buys, sells and conversions, plus a spread. Custom orders carry a 1.5% fee. Members of the paid Kraken+ plan can trade up to $10,000 a month in major coins without trading fees, though spreads and card fees still apply.

Kraken Pro, at pro.kraken.com and in a separate app, is built for advanced traders. It offers detailed charts, more order types such as stop loss, take profit and trailing stops, plus margin and futures where allowed. It uses a maker-taker fee schedule, where orders that add liquidity to the order book usually pay less than orders that take it. Fees drop as your 30-day volume grows, so a small trader pays a higher rate than a very large one. Our guide to limit vs market orders explains the maker and taker idea.

Is Kraken safe?

No exchange is risk-free, but Kraken publishes several safety measures. It offers two-factor authentication, FIDO2 passkeys, withdrawal address allowlisting and a global settings lock, and says most assets are kept in offline cold storage. Kraken also publishes proof of reserves snapshots. For June 30, 2026, it reported holding a bit more than 100% of customer bitcoin, ether, solana and XRP balances. These are company claims. Crypto held on an exchange is still exposed to the risks described in what happens if a crypto exchange goes bankrupt.

Has Kraken had an IPO?

Not as of October 2026. Payward said in November 2025 that it had confidentially filed a draft registration statement with the SEC. A private raise valued the company at $20 billion, including $200 million from Citadel Securities. In September 2026, Crowdfund Insider reported, citing people familiar with the plans, that Payward is not preparing to list before the second quarter of 2027, as crypto listings weakened during 2026.

How does Kraken compare with Coinbase?

Kraken and Coinbase are both US-founded exchanges with apps for beginners and advanced platforms for traders. Coinbase, founded in 2012, has been listed on Nasdaq since 2021, while Kraken remains private. Kraken says it supports more than 600 cryptocurrencies and publishes proof of reserves, while Coinbase points to its public financial filings instead. Fees, coin lists and available products differ by country and change often, so comparing current fee pages side by side is the clearest way to see the difference.