Kraken works hard to maintain a secure and fair exchange for all clients and to ensure traders are always freely able to execute orders – even amid the more volatile moments common to the growing digital asset market. 

The digital asset market remains unique among financial markets because of its decentralized structure, which offers clients the benefit of being able to choose wherever they want to trade. This also means there may be price fluctuations, differing volumes, or varying supply and demand dynamics, attributable to different exchange venues at different times. 

Such a movement occurred yesterday, when we observed large price fluctuations in several trading pairs across all major exchanges.

We have since performed a detailed investigation of yesterday’s events and have found the trading engine processed orders correctly. Despite severe load, the platform continued executing trades throughout the market move.

Our market prices are not set by Kraken, but rather by our clients who are the buyers and sellers. Nonetheless, because client satisfaction is one of our top priorities, we are reviewing specific cases and determining how to help clients on an individual basis. 

While our system operated correctly based on client trades at the time, we always seek to improve the client experience. In the coming weeks, we are working on incorporating our industry leading CF Benchmarks indices as real-time index pricing for risk calculations.

We are also continuing to enhance the total exchange capacity to handle more transactions in times of unprecedented load. Please stay tuned for more information in the coming weeks.

Lastly, we would like to remind clients about the availability of advanced trading tools on the Kraken exchange, and the responsibilities clients take on when using these offerings in conjunction with trading pairs denominated in nascent digital assets.

It’s very important for any client trading with margin to understand our liquidation process and how it may affect them in volatile markets. Clients should adequately collateralize accounts and closely monitor their margin level when leveraging these trading tools.

Will Kraken compensate traders for losses or roll back trades?

In digital asset markets, it’s highly uncommon to reverse trades. This is because of the importance placed on the integrity of the matching process and finality of trading.

If you feel that yesterday’s market volatility resulted in any wrongful or unfair action taken on your account, please open a support ticket by visiting this link.