✦Kraken: Research Notes on the Global Offering
These notes describe the global Kraken platform (kraken.com) as Squaby found it on October 20, 2026. They summarize what Kraken publishes and what official registers and government agencies record. Squaby has not tested the platform hands-on. Kraken serves customers through different legal entities depending on where they live, and its pages choose the language and the country by the visitor's location. Availability, products and fees differ by country; regional differences are named where Squaby found them. The criteria, points and sources are listed in the Squaby Score section above.
1. Background
Kraken describes itself as founded in 2011. Its Global Terms of Service apply unless you live in Canada, the European Economic Area (EEA) or Brazil, which have their own terms. For most countries the contracting company is Payward Trading Ltd, a British Virgin Islands company; Payward Interactive, Inc. serves clients in the United States and Payward Ltd serves clients in the United Kingdom.
2. Enforcement Actions Since October 2021
Squaby found these actions with a fine or sanction, each on the authority's own page, and all of them settled or final as far as the sources show:
✓OFAC (November 2022): Payward, Inc. agreed to pay $362,158.70 to settle apparent violations of the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations and to invest an additional $100,000 in sanctions compliance controls. OFAC called the case non-egregious and voluntarily self-disclosed.
✓SEC (February 2023): Payward Ventures, Inc. and Payward Trading Ltd. agreed to immediately stop offering or selling securities through crypto staking services or staking programs and to pay $30 million, to settle SEC charges that its staking-as-a-service program was an unregistered offer and sale.
✓De Nederlandsche Bank (2023): the Dutch central bank imposed an order subject to penalty on Payward International Markets Limited for offering crypto services in the Netherlands without registration. The penalty reached its maximum of EUR 4 million. Kraken objected and DNB decided on the objection in December 2023; by April 2024 no appeal was recorded.
✓ASIC, Australia (December 2024): the Federal Court of Australia ordered Bit Trade Pty Ltd, Kraken's Australian operator, to pay AUD 8 million for offering a margin product to more than 1,100 customers without the required target market determination. Squaby found no report of an appeal.
A separate SEC civil action against Payward, Inc. and Payward Ventures, Inc. was dismissed with prejudice in March 2025; the SEC said this was not an assessment of the merits. A CFTC settlement from September 2021 falls before the five-year window. Squaby also searched for actions by other regulators, including in the United Kingdom, Canada and Ireland, and found none with a fine; those searches were not exhaustive.
3. Registrations, Licenses and Restricted Countries
Squaby confirmed Kraken group companies in the official sources of three regulators:
✓European Union (MiCA): Payward Europe Solutions Limited and Payward Global Solutions Limited are authorised by the Central Bank of Ireland as crypto-asset service providers (both since June 25, 2025) in the interim register of the European Securities and Markets Authority. The first covers custody, exchange, order execution and transfer services; the second operates a trading platform. The authorisation is passported to the EEA countries listed in the register.
✓United Kingdom (Financial Conduct Authority): Payward Ltd., reference number 928768, is registered for cryptoasset activities under the money laundering regulations (since November 23, 2021). The register states that customers of such firms cannot use the Financial Ombudsman Service or the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.
✓Canada: Payward Canada Inc. appears in the Canadian Securities Administrators' list of crypto platforms authorized to do business with Canadians (decision of April 1, 2025).
Each of these is a separate regime and counts as its own jurisdiction. Kraken's licensing page also names registrations or licenses in Cyprus, Ireland (e-money), the United States (a FinCEN money services business, a Wyoming special purpose depository institution, an SEC-registered broker-dealer and a CFTC-registered futures commission merchant), Argentina, Australia and Bermuda, and says that Kraken is not licensed or regulated in Singapore. Squaby has not checked these entries in the local registers. Kraken's complaints page also names a Dubai entity regulated by VARA, which Squaby did not check.
Legal entity: the Terms name Payward Trading Ltd and give its address in Road Town, Tortola, but they do not give a company number, so this criterion is not met.
Restricted countries: Kraken's licensing page lists regions where it does not serve clients or accept deposits, among them Afghanistan, Belarus, Cuba, Iran, Japan, North Korea, Russia and Syria, and it lists restrictions by country and state, for example New York and Maine in the United States. Clients in the EEA cannot deposit or trade several assets, including USDT. Check what applies where you live before registering.
4. Security and Custody
✓Proof of Reserves: the newest snapshot on Kraken's page was dated June 30, 2026, more than 90 days before Squaby's check, so the Squaby Score treats it as stale. Kraken says an independent accountant, named in the report as The Network Firm LLP, performs the review under agreed-upon procedures, and users can check that their own balance is included through a Merkle tree. A proof of reserves is a point-in-time snapshot, not a full financial audit.
✓Custody: Kraken says it uses offline (cold) wallets and online hot wallets, keeps the vast majority of funds offline, and houses its infrastructure in secured facilities under 24/7 surveillance. It does not publish the percentage. Kraken also states that it holds ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certification and has completed a SOC 2 Type 1 examination; Squaby has not seen the certificates.
✓Account security: Kraken offers authenticator-app two-factor authentication, passkeys and hardware security keys, a global settings lock and email confirmation of new withdrawal addresses. Withdrawals go only to addresses that were added and confirmed first.
✓No insurance or emergency fund: Kraken states that crypto exchanges do not qualify for deposit insurance programs, and Squaby found no published insurance or emergency fund.
✓Incidents: Squaby found no incident in the last five years in which Kraken customers lost funds. In June 2024 a deposit bug let users receive funds before a deposit had cleared; about $3 million was withdrawn from Kraken's own treasury and Kraken said no user funds were affected. In April 2026 Kraken disclosed that two support employees had improperly accessed support data of about 2,000 accounts (0.02% of its user base) and that it had received an extortion demand; Kraken said its systems were not breached and funds were not at risk.
5. Fees
✓Spot trading: on Kraken Pro the entry tier shows 0.40% maker and 0.80% taker. There are 17 volume tiers over 30 days, down to 0.00% maker and 0.05% taker at the highest tier, and a maker-rebate schedule for eligible pairs.
✓Instant Buy and Sell: Kraken charges 1% on instant and recurring trades and 1.5% on custom orders, and a fixed 3% on small balance conversions. The price also includes a spread that Kraken says varies, without stating its size. Kraken+ members pay no trading fee on up to $10,000 of monthly volume, but spreads and card fees still apply.
✓Fee overview: trading, deposit and withdrawal fees are published on one fee page with links to the detailed articles.
✓Deposits and withdrawals: several bank deposit methods have no Kraken fee, for example SEPA in EUR, Faster Payments in GBP and SWIFT in USD; debit card deposits were listed at a fixed 0.25 (in the deposit currency) plus 3.75%. Crypto withdrawal fees are listed per asset, for example 0.000015 BTC for Bitcoin in an article last updated December 31, 2025, and the final fee is shown at confirmation. Fiat withdrawal fees vary by method, for example 1 EUR for SEPA and 1.95 GBP for Faster Payments.
6. Markets, Products and Tools
✓Assets: Kraken's public API listed 635 distinct base assets in spot pairs that were online on October 20, 2026. The list includes tokenized stocks and stablecoins, and which assets you can trade depends on your country.
✓Products: spot trading, margin, futures and perpetual contracts, and staking. Some are restricted by region: for example retail clients in the United Kingdom cannot trade derivatives and clients in Canada cannot use margin. Margin and derivatives carry a high risk of loss.
✓Orders and API: the documented order types include limit, stop-loss, take-profit, trailing-stop and iceberg orders. Kraken publishes a REST API with a tier-based rate limit counter.
✓Listing policy: Kraken publishes five evaluation criteria for new listings (asset profile, market fit, technical and security robustness, regulatory posture and community) and says that sustained illiquidity, repeated technical failures or adverse regulatory actions can lead to delisting. It publishes no numeric thresholds.
7. Apps, Languages and Support
✓Apps: Kraken's app is listed on the Apple App Store and on Google Play, published by Payward, Inc.
✓Languages: the language selector offered 28 languages.
✓Beginners: the Instant Buy and Sell interface sits next to Kraken Pro, and Kraken Learn offers free articles and videos for newcomers.
✓Support: Kraken states that its support team is available around the clock through chat in the app and request forms answered by email. It publishes no phone number; a call option appears in the apps only in select situations. The help center is searchable in 17 languages, and Kraken runs a public status page.
✓Complaints: Kraken confirms a complaint within 5 business days and says to expect a response within 15 business days, or 30 to 35 in complex cases. It names an ombudsman or regulator for escalation in Australia, Canada and Dubai.
✓Verification: Kraken states that standard verification is instant when automated and takes about 45 minutes when reviewed manually; higher limits can take a few days.
8. Fiat Deposits and Withdrawals
✓Currencies: nine fiat currencies (USD, EUR, CAD, AUD, GBP, CHF, ARS, BRL and MXN). Residents of the United States can deposit only USD.
✓Methods: bank transfers (for example ACH, SEPA, Faster Payments, SWIFT and Interac e-Transfer), Visa and Mastercard cards, Apple Pay and Google Pay in some countries, PayPal and iDEAL.
✓Speed: SEPA Instant, Faster Payments and card deposits are listed as instant or near-instant.
✓Withdrawals: fiat withdrawals to a bank account are offered.
✓Limits: the published cash limits ($100,000 per day and $500,000 per 30 days) apply to standard verified individual accounts. Actual limits depend on country, verification level and account type and are shown in the account settings. No table per verification level is published.
Summary
Kraken's documented strengths in Squaby's criteria are its asset range, its customer support (around-the-clock chat, a public status page and a complaints process), its regulatory registrations in the European Union, the United Kingdom and Canada, and its fiat coverage. It loses points on fees (an entry spot fee of 0.40% maker and 0.80% taker, and a 1% Instant Buy fee plus spread), on a proof of reserves that is older than 90 days, on the missing company number of its main global entity, and on the lack of a published insurance or emergency fund. Its enforcement history is settled but real. Availability differs by country: check Kraken's licensing page and the products offered where you live before registering.
