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Kraken Exchange On the Rise After SEC Targets Binance, Coinbase
With Binance and Coinbase, two of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world by trading volume, being sued by the SEC, some users of these platforms may be looking for an alternative. Though there has been nothing proven legally by the SEC, it’s likely far less of a headache for users of these exchanges to just use another platform that’s just as reputable, at least until the legal issues clear up.
The reality is that these lawsuits will likely take years to settle, but thankfully there is another platform that is just as reputable as Binance and Coinbase: Kraken. Let’s take a look at Kraken’s stellar history as a crypto exchange.
Kraken Has Been Rock Solid Through Bear and Bull Markets
Kraken first was founded in 2011 by Jesse Powell and two others. It wasn’t until 2014 and the collapse of Mt.Gox Exchange, which was at one time the biggest Bitcoin exchange in the world, that Kraken started to take off as an exchange. Powell had worked as a consultant on resolving Mt.Gox’s issues, giving him insight into the reality that the exchange was likely to fail. This allowed him and the team to focus on making Kraken the new, more secure alternative. They launched Kraken in September 2013, just months before Mt.Gox formally failed security audits and collapsed in early 2014. Kraken initially offered Bitcoin and Litecoin as their primary assets.
Kraken then received $5 million in funding in early 2014, following Mt.Gox’s collapse, and a month later they were one of the first crypto exchanges to be on the Bloomberg Terminal. They’ve grown exponentially since then, with a large focus on platform security. This is evidenced by their continued running of a bug bounty program, where they reward users for finding flaws in their security (if any).
In addition to their focus on security, Kraken has never experienced a hack. Until the SEC charged Kraken with $30 million in fines for their staking services in early 2023, Kraken had never been in any legal trouble either. They’ve been compliant with regulations that were available to them. The reality is their staking service was legally acceptable until the SEC changed rules, something their chair is currently under fire for. It’s also a bit odd that Kraken isn’t being sued for offering illegal securities despite offering many assets the SEC named as securities in their suits of Binance and Coinbase.
Kraken continues to provide excellent services and products, with competitive fee structures. They also offer a large selection of digital assets, including many of those that have been delisted by other US platforms.
Kraken’s Best Features
Kraken still offers staking services to those outside the US, but with a new disclaimer that you’re subject to tax laws on your earnings. Kraken let’s users stake a variety of crypto assets such as Cardano (ADA), Solana (SOL), Ethereum (ETH), and Polygon (MATIC) among others.
Apart from staking for passive income, Kraken offers competitive trading fees that can go as low as 0% depending on your trading volume. They also offer margin trading up to 5x, futures, over the counter services, and account management services.
Kraken offers an array of funding options for users in a variety of jurisdictions including Canada, Australia, the UK, and the US. Having multiple funding options makes it easy for you to pick one that fits your needs. You can also buy digital assets instantly with certain credit and debit cards, though this often incurs high fees that may not be worthwhile.
Finally, Kraken has top class customer support. They offer 24/7 customer service to their users in the form of both 24-hour live chat, along with 24-hour phone support. There aren’t many exchanges of Kraken’s caliber that offer this kind of customer support, with the 24-hour phone support being notable. For those of you that are more comfortable waiting, they also offer email support. Kraken also offers an extremely comprehensive support center with FAQs and guides for just about every product and service the exchange offers.
Kraken’s Compliance
Kraken is not facing any regulatory scrutiny, which may be most important for those of you considering moving assets off Binance or Coinbase. Yes, Kraken did just pay a fine to the SEC, but this fine was based upon regulations that changed since they began offering their staking services.
Kraken was one of the quickest exchanges when it came to providing their proof of reserves. You can access your proof of reserves through your account dashboard and verify that all the assets they hold are being held by Kraken. It would be useful for them to provide an overall proof of reserves, broken down by asset and updated monthly, like Binance, but this is a good start regardless.
Kraken isn’t going to mismanage funds like FTX did, or like Binance is accused of doing, and you should feel confident in using them as an alternative exchange to the ones in legal hot water.
Nothing is 100% in crypto but Kraken has arguably the best reputation in the business for security.
