Bitcoin Forum

I deposited BTC to my Kraken account from a cold storage wallet. I intended to only send to Kraken what I wanted to sell but mistakingly sent all that was in the wallet. I have been trying to withdraw back what I didn't sell. I tried a small amount first to make sure it would work alright as I had never done this before so I sent 0.00099 btc to my original non-kraken wallet, but now an hour later it is still not showing on the blockchain....I know it may not have confirmed in the hour but surely it should have appeared immediately as a transaction on the blockchain? Anyone have any idea what could be wrong? TIA.

This could be an error from the kraken exchange, on a normal circumstances, after you send the withdrawal,
within a few minutes, it should show as a pending/unconfirmed transaction on the block chain but if it's not showing, the exchange is supposed to be asked why. It possible that withdrawal can be delayed for one hour or more depending on network congestion and also depending on the fee that you used for the withdrawal, but I know  exchanges usually have a fixed transaction fee. Maybe you can contact the customer support.

I do not use Kraken, but as long as your assets were not seized by the exchange, your withdrawal should go through. Centralized exchanges do not process withdrawals per individual, many withdrawals are merged into one transaction and sent. BTW, how are you checking the bockchain for it, do you have the transaction ID?
I am curious how you made this mistake, you have to be very careful when you are sending assets from your wallet to a centralized exchange, they can seize it and ask you for things you might be unwilling or unable to provide.

Sometimes Kraken has this problem. But there is no reason to worry. I would suggest you to go to your Kraken account and see what is showing in the withdrawal history. It will probably say Initiated, Processing or Completed. If it says Initiated or Processing, then the transfer has not yet been published on the blockchain and the transaction will take time to complete. Sometimes it can take 1-2 hours for a Bitcoin transaction from Kraken. Or you can take help of live support and let them know that your transfer has not been added to the blockchain. This is basically a problem with Kraken, not the blockchain. The root cause of this problem may be that Kraken's withdrawal queue is busy or Kraken is under maintenance. Or sometimes such problems may occur during security verification or manual review of your account. Finally, you have no reason to worry and be patient.

Thanks for all your replies. I think I have worked out what the problem is. I received an email for me to verify the new withdrawal address but I only just saw the email and the link expired after 60 mins so I can't verify it now. Currently on the phone with them here, hopefully they will be able to sort it for me.

I've used Kraken a few times, and don't worry, it's a good exchange, very safe

I don't remember having to confirm my e-mail address in order to withdraw, but I do remember that I had to first register the withdrawal address, confirm it by e-mail and then that address would be authorized for withdrawal, without needing any other confirmations when I wanted to withdraw my balance in the future

I never used Kraken's phone support, so please update us and let us know if they provide good customer service

And finally, I don't think you even needed to contact them, you just had to re-register your withdrawal address, confirm it and then make the withdrawal

I can confirm that their customer service is fantastic. I had to hold maybe 15 minutes this time before I spoke to someone but they have always been very helpful and solved every issue I have had. Having said that after confirming the withdrawal address and proceeding with another withdrawal, it still hasn't shown up on the blockchain and over the years every transaction I've made always appeared immediately even though it may have taken taken a while to confirm. I will call them back if it doesn't confirm.

It’s possible that there are certain checks or something similar related to the transaction that could be causing the delay. I don’t think there will be any issues this time, but if there are, definitely give them another call.

Just to be sure, you doubled check it's the correct address, right?—by double checking, I mean not just the first few or last characters.

If so, it could just be a slight delay. I've experienced this in other CEx, though I did not wait more than 30 minutes. Or as a fellow member above mentioned, kraken could be doing additional checks before they process your transaction. And yes, once kraken has processed/broadcasted your withdrawal, it should immediately reflect in the blockchain.

Good to hear your problem is on the way to being solved. CEX withdrawals can be delayed sometimes, though Kraken is quite a big name in the industry so I'm sure your <0.001 BTC will be in your wallet soon.

While I generally advocate against the use of centralized exchanges, Kraken have been among my favorites for a long time - for their platform, service, as well as their (purported) values.  Nonetheless, you should investigate using decentralized services and exchanges in the future, to avoid delays and hassle that you don't need.

A very safe exchange today can become a scam exchange tomorrow or it will collapse or bankrupt by any reason you don't know today.

Before FTX collapse and bankruptcy within a week, it was a Tier 1 exchange so it might happen with Kraken and other top exchanges. We can not know what they do behind the scene but if we are aware of this risk, and manage our bitcoin better such as in our non custodial wallets, we can secure our coins better.

Reminder: do not keep your money in online accounts. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5421039.0)

The problem seems to be that I changed my password, then added a new withdrawal address. There is a 24 hour hold on new addresses created after a password change, so I expect to see my BTC going where it's supposed to be going after the 24 hrs have passed :). Thanks everyone.

I must add I found the 2FA a pain. 2 different authentication apps that I attempted to use offered me a 3 day free trial and my credit card number flashed up so I hope I'm not signed up for these as I can't see anywhere to unsubscribe.

Wait, that's weird.
That looks shady since 2FA apps don't even need to be connected to the internet to work and the legit ones do not require any subscription.

You may have something malicious in that phone that caused the subscription prompt if you're using any of the famously used authenticator apps during that attempt.
You may start a new topic if you wish to set-up 2FA,
But you must include the steps that you've used in your previous attempt and the apps that you've used.

Yes, it's an annoying measure, but it can help with security. If someone steals your account and changes the password, you have 24 hours to let Kraken know

But about this 2FA, be careful, you can use free apps without having to enter anything, not even a credit card
There's Google's Authenticator, and Authy, which is the one I'm using at the moment, both of which are good and serve me well

I was first surprised when you said your transaction is not on the blockchain, which is strange, and from what you said here, the transaction was not sent at all by Kraken.
You believe it was sent cause you don't notice the platform response, and this is what you need to pay attention to when on the internet if you don't want to be a victim of a crypto scam.

2FA apps are free, and the particular app is properly scammer idea. Use the Aegis authenticator.

I will advise you to use Aegis authenticator, which is open source app, instead of the Google authenticator and Authy, which are not open source. Once have time synchronization and multiple failed attempts when registering the device on the app, respectively.

Maybe you could try contact support to see what they could do for you, or if they already said withdrawal successful then there is nothing you can do about it till the mempool pick it, just relax and wait for miner to pick it up seems like the exchange uses a smaller fee to send out the BTC otherwise it could have confirmed on time or maybe it could be that the time you send out your coin transaction fee went higher and wasn't able to use standard fee for exchange to confirm your transaction. Is been awhile I used kraken exchange.

The BTC has now moved and Kraken didn't hold it the full 24 hrs since I changed my password so that is sorted. I contacted my credit card provider about the authenticator app charge which is pending after my 3 day free trial. They have put a block on there.

Is it actually necessary to use a paid authenticator app? Because why not you use Google authenticator app, which could be found on either Play Store and Apple Store for your Two factor verifications. Because that's actually what I use for securing all my apps for my two factor verifications, and you could also use the same, and stop paying a penny for your Authenticator process. And all you need is just an active Gmail account,  the setup keys and you are good to go. Because since you just changed your password and went ahead to wanting to place a withdrawal, that must have prompted the exchange bot requesting for an extra means of verification. Of which I think Google authenticator app is the best for now.

Here is a screenshot below

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/05/09/UUIqt8.jpeg

I guess theres a problem with the kraken itself have you seen that the transaction proceed on the withdrawal panel of the platform now if you can see that still process seems could be a manual approval but if they declined thats the time seems you need to raise a ticket into them the same way if upon your withdrawal shows a transaction ID and still not proceed to the destination.

There are many Two Factor Authentication Applications and you can have many free ones to use, including open source 2FAs.

A good open source 2FA is Aegis.
https://getaegis.app/

You can use Google Aunthenticator but it is not open source and you can not expect open source products from Google.

In situation like this, before you make and transaction, what is expected of you to do is in knowing the required minimum amount of money you can deposit as well as withdraw from kraken, this will help you to first have a direction on the passible cause to the delay, then try track the transaction made using the transaction ID on the blockchain, so that you can know what's the condition delaying, lastly, very to see if there is no error of omission or addition to the intended address you're sending to.

Kraken happens to be my less appealing exchange, but I may likely be saying that I have used Kraken a few time before and one of those things that made the exchange tiring for me was the high fees and minimum amount to withdraw, so you issue may be that the 0.0009 bitcoin may not be up to the minimum amount for withdrawal.

So let be guided but if you go back to check the exchange minimum withdrawal amount to know if that bitcoin is under the amount or up to the amount, from then we can proceed to the next thing.

the amount was way above the minimum for withdrawal - the issue was that I changed my password and so couldn't withdraw for 24 hrs.