Kraken removes advanced trading features.

We use Kraken.com as one of the exchanges to turn BTC into USD and get a wire to our bank.

In the past, we utilized trading options offered at kraken like ‘trailing stops’. Essentially we would ride the price up as it went up and sell if it went down from it’s peak a certain percentage point.

It allowed us to lock in our maximum loss while still letting us ride the roller coaster up if it was running that way.

Well back on August 21st we received an email that said they were delisting trading pairs and temporarily suspending all advanced order types.

Open orders will remain open until cancelled or executed, but you will no longer be able to create new orders in any of the following advanced types:

Stop Loss
Take Profit
Stop Loss, Take Profit
Stop Loss, Take Profit Limit
Stop Loss Limit
Take Profit Limit
Trailing Stop
Trailing Stop Limit
Stop, Limit

Then, on August 26th we receive word that they are reducing how precise you can be when placing orders for trading pairs.

Here is what Kraken has to say about this:

Reducing the price precision will help reduce extraneous activity in the order books as traders continually jump in front of each other by a very small fraction, resulting in a higher volume of canceled (unfilled) orders. We have received many requests from clients for this reduction and it will help reduce load on the trade engine with more efficient order books.

Thank you for choosing Kraken, the trusted and secure digital assets exchange.

The Kraken Team

Thoughts on Changes at Kraken

I think they are struggling to keep up with the demand on their trading engine. I think they were struggling with the volume and influx of new traders into the markets. Billions has been pouring into crypto as it is fleeing the stock market lately and Kraken is one of the larger crypto > fiat exchanges out there.

I am hopeful that advanced order types will be back soon. I liked the flexibility it gave us when trading.

I think the moving the fractional order fineness might keep the leap frogging on the order books from happening. We shall see on that as they might still jump one another to be at the front of the open orders.

I’ll be updating the site with more news about Kraken and the other leading bitcoin exchanges as the news warrants. In the mean time, jump aboard the bitcoin train. It’s not too late, we haven’t left the station yet. On the other hand we could be peaking and about to hard crash so who knows, not me.