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Verdict: Kraken’s 2022 product lineup expanded across trading, staking, NFTs and institutional services, but that historical record alone cannot show whether it is the right exchange for you today. Kraken’s year-end account is a company retrospective, not an independent usability or reliability test. Your decision should turn on current regional availability, the cost of the specific transaction you plan to make, and whether you want to trade on an order book or hold crypto with an exchange.
What changed at Kraken in 2022?
In its December 26, 2022 year-in-review, Kraken described a year of product launches and changes. These are company-reported milestones; they do not independently establish how well the features worked or how customers experienced them.
- Kraken Pro: Kraken said it revised the web interface to bring spot and margin trading, staking and portfolio management together. It also added mobile staking to Kraken Pro.
- Bitcoin Lightning Network: Kraken said it added support for instant Bitcoin transactions over Lightning.
- Staking assets: Kraken named Mina, Secret Network, Tron, Polygon and The Graph among assets newly supported for staking.
- NFTs: After a beta period, Kraken said it opened Kraken NFT to public access.
- Recurring buys and transfers: Kraken reported launching recurring buys, adding native USDC transfers on Solana and Tron, and enabling MATIC transfers on Polygon.
- Institutional trading: Kraken described adding OTC AutoRFQ and a portal for block-trade quotes.
Kraken reported that it offered more than 200 cryptocurrencies by the end of 2022 and listed more than 130 tokens during that year. Those are dated company figures, not a count of the assets currently available to a particular customer.
The retrospective also reported an award for Kraken’s institutional and VIP account-management team, said to be selected against 176 competitors, and cited an NPS of 83 and CSAT of 99.999% for those clients. Those narrowly scoped company-reported figures are not general retail customer ratings.
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Is Kraken a good crypto exchange?
There is no evidence here to support a universal ranking. Kraken may be worth considering if you want order-book trading tools, a range of crypto products, or features such as recurring buys; whether those features suit you depends on your location and how you intend to use the account. This historical review cannot establish current asset availability, service quality or comparative value.
Evaluate the exchange against the transaction and account you actually expect to use:
- Buying method: Compare a simple purchase with an order-book trade. The product and transaction type can affect the total cost.
- Full transaction cost: Check the applicable fee schedule and the transaction preview for your market, order type and volume rather than relying on a single advertised rate.
- Regional access: Confirm that the assets, funding methods and services you need are available where you live.
- Staking: Verify eligibility, supported assets, reward terms and any lock-up or withdrawal conditions that apply to your account.
- Custody and support: Decide whether you are comfortable leaving assets with an exchange and whether its support options meet your needs.
No like-for-like independent competitor dataset or representative set of 2022 customer reviews is established here, so this review does not name a cheaper, safer or better rival. It also does not claim first-hand testing.
What are Kraken’s fees?
There is no single enduring rate that describes every Kraken transaction. Fees can vary by product, market, order type, trading volume and date, so check the current fee schedule and the quote or transaction preview for the exact action you plan to take. Kraken’s fee information is available on its fee schedule and its page explaining fees on Kraken.
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Do not treat Kraken’s December 2022 announcement of a limited spot-fee trial for accounts with $100 million or more in trading volume as a standing offer. Kraken said that trial ran into February 2023 and that its terms no longer applied after it ended. The announcement is historical context, not a current quote.
Is Kraken safe?
Kraken reported earning ISO 27001 certification in 2022, presenting it as a security milestone in its year-in-review. That is a company-announced certification, not proof that crypto held on an exchange is risk-free or that a customer’s balance is protected against every loss.
Kraken’s U.S. disclosures state that virtual currency is not legal tender, is not backed by the U.S. government, and that exchange balances are not covered by FDIC or SIPC protection. They also warn that transactions may be irreversible. Read the applicable Kraken disclosures for your jurisdiction before depositing or trading.
Kraken’s retrospective says the company advocates self-custody and encourages clients to keep crypto safe themselves. Self-custody changes who controls the keys; it does not eliminate crypto price, loss or operational risks. Anyone choosing a hardware wallet must protect its recovery phrase and understand that losing access to the keys can mean losing access to the assets.
Can I stake crypto on Kraken?
Kraken described staking as part of its 2022 offering and said it added mobile staking to Kraken Pro, with several newly supported assets. But staking access is not uniform across regions or time. On February 9, 2023, Kraken announced that after a settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission concerning its on-chain staking program, it would stop that service for U.S. clients while continuing staking for non-U.S. clients at that time. See Kraken’s settlement announcement.
That February 2023 statement describes the change announced then; it is not a current eligibility map for every U.S. state or country. Before staking, check availability for your account and read the applicable terms for the asset, rewards, withdrawal timing and any lock-up conditions.
How to use this 2022 review today
Use the historical record to understand what Kraken said it added in 2022, not as a guarantee that a product, asset or service is available now. Before opening or funding an account, verify the current details that can change:
Quick Recap
- Confirm the current services and assets offered to customers in your location.
- Choose the intended product—such as a simple purchase, an order-book trade or staking—and review its terms.
- Check the fee schedule and transaction preview for the exact market, order and amount.
- Decide whether to keep assets on the exchange or use self-custody, accounting for the responsibility to safeguard private keys and recovery information.
Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.
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