Kraken

What is Kraken?

Founded by Jesse Powell, Kraken has been leading the blockchain revolution since 2011. Kraken is among the oldest cryptocurrency exchanges that are still in existence. Known for its rigorous security standards, low fees, and overall excellent service, Kraken always finds a mention among one of the top places to buy and sell cryptocurrencies. 

The story of Kraken goes back to the day when Jesse Powell, Kraken's CEO, visited the office of Mt.Gox. He was taken aback by the sheer negligence that Mt.Gox had for safety and security protocols. It was quite obvious to him during his visit to the Mt.Gox office that Mt.Gox attracts hackers because of the lack of safety and security features on their exchange. Powell's visit to Mt.Gox's office provided him with much-need knowledge to develop an exchange that is better and safer. 

As it turned out, Powell was correct in his assessment about the lack of safety & security features on Mt.Gox. In the same year in which Kraken was launched, Mt.Gox lost $460 million worth of customer funds after a hacking incident. 

Kraken played an instrumental role in getting back the Bitcoins from Mt. Gox, the largest cryptocurrency exchange at that time. Having raised 100+ million dollars so far, Kraken is committed to keeping itself safe from hacking attacks, similar to the one that led to the downfall of Mt.Gox.

In its mission of becoming the most secure crypto exchanges in the world, Kraken has forged partnerships with financial institutions in Germany and Japan. After acquiring Crypto Facilities, a startup, for $100 million, Kraken became one of the first exchanges worldwide to offer futures trading. The volume of crypto futures trading on Kraken across Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, and Litecoin saw nearly $1 billion worth of trade within no time after they started offering crypto futures trading.

Kraken supports seven fiat currencies & 54 cryptocurrencies, and users across 176 countries can access the services of Kraken. But there are some regional restrictions that Kraken has put in place. In the United States, only the residents of New York & Washington state are restricted from using Kraken. There are also some regional restrictions when it comes to the ability of trading cryptocurrencies and fiat currencies on Kraken. Depositing and trading in Euro are not available for the residents of New Hampshire (NH) and Texas (TX) in the US. Australians cannot deposit or trade DASH, XMR, or ZEC, whereas US residents cannot trade XRP. 

To ensure that their customer funds are safe, Kraken keeps its 95% of funds in an offline cold wallet, which is geographically distributed. Powell has proved that Kraken takes its security and safety features very seriously, by the fact that to date, Kraken has never been hacked.

There's also an app for users interested in buying and selling cryptocurrencies using the Kraken app. You can download it on Google Play Store & Apple App Store.