[ANN] KRAKEN.COM - Exchange with USD EUR GBP JPY CAD BTC LTC XRP NMC XDG STR ETH

[peterblack]

Btw. I am looking at BitcoinAverage.com a lot while trading, because it has very nice layout.

And I noticed that Kraken's volume in Euro doesn't correspond with what's stated on the exchange.
Right now on Kraken - 68.69 XBT and 49.69 XBT on BitcoinAverage.

And USD is not present at all at BitcoinAverage and the volume is even higher than Euro - now 89.73 XBT.

Maybe you wanna get in touch with them.

[1715185325]

1715185325

[1715185325]

1715185325

[Dargo]

Sorry, I forgot to mention that the check option is US only for now. I'm not sure we could post a photo of the check, but that's a very interesting idea to consider.

I though people from the U.S. cannot trade National Currency yet?
Why won't you send the check abroad? Envelope stamp doesn't cost that much. IRS sent me check to Europe with tax refunds without problem last year

Please implement this check scanning option. That would make everything really easier.
As far as I know almost all the big U.S. banks have this check scanning feature built in their smartphone apps.
And there can be a button to destroy the check, after it has been successfully deposited.

We've had national currency trading from the beginning in a few US states. From the OP: "In most US states, including California and New York, we offer no services.  In some US states we offer Digital Currency <-> Digital Currency trading.  In fewer US states we offer DC <-> National Currency trading."

We're only doing checks for US right now because it turned out our current USD bank can't do ACH (or any cheap wire withdrawal option). It's totally manual right now, so we don't want to open it up beyond the US yet. Your idea with scanning the checks is really interesting, so we'll consider whether we can do that for everybody, but it isn't something we can do right away. At the very least, the whole process would have to be automated, and that means development time.  

[Dargo]

Btw. I am looking at BitcoinAverage.com a lot while trading, because it has very nice layout.

And I noticed that Kraken's volume in Euro doesn't correspond with what's stated on the exchange.
Right now on Kraken - 68.69 XBT and 49.69 XBT on BitcoinAverage.

And USD is not present at all at BitcoinAverage and the volume is even higher than Euro - now 89.73 XBT.

Maybe you wanna get in touch with them.

Thanks - we'll look into this. Really appreciate all your feedback/ideas.

Edit: where did you see the 49.69 XBT on bitcoinaverage.com? I only see a % of total volume across all exchanges listed for Kraken. - Nevemind, I see it now. It's way off at the moment, since it says 0.00. That confused me for a moment.

[donch]

Hi Dargo,

just want to clarify the exact meaning of "binning". Is it rounding down, rounding up or rounding to nearest?

For example, given the response from:

https://api.kraken.com/0/public/Depth?pair=XBTUSD

Can I infer that an order of size 1 is:

between minimum trade size and 1.0
between minimum trade size and 1.499999...
between minimum trade size and 1.999999...

and for size 2 is:

between 1.0000001 and 2.0
between 1.5 and 2.49999...
between 2.0 and 2.99999...

Final questions:

What is the minimum trade size?
What is the precision of a trade size for each currency, i.e. how many figures after the decimal place.

Thanks in advance!

I'm double checking on this, but I'm pretty certain that it's always rounded up so that:

if real volume is greater than 0 but less than or equal to 1 at a given price, then market data will show volume as 1 at that price

if real volume is greater than 1 but less than or equal to 2 at a given price, then market data will show volume as 2 at that price

etc.

I talked about this at length with the developers yesterday, and we will make the binning much more fine-grained as soon as possible. As for doing away with the binning altogether, that will require more convincing (you don't need to convince me though), so people should speak up if that's what they prefer.

Bump 

[Dargo]

Order volume precision has been increased to 3 decimal places in Kraken market data. Order volume data is still being rounded up as stated above, except now it's being rounded up in the third decimal place.

So, for example, an order with an actual volume of 1.0341 will appear in the order book as a volume of 1.035.

We hope this level of volume precision is more convenient for everyone and appreciate our users openly communicating with us about the features they would like to see on the exchange.

[cyclops]

Order volume precision has been increased to 3 decimal places in Kraken market data. Order volume data is still being rounded up as stated above, except now it's being rounded up in the third decimal place.

So, for example, an order with an actual volume of 1.0341 will appear in the order book as a volume of 1.035.

We hope this level of volume precision is more convenient for everyone and appreciate our users openly communicating with us about the features they would like to see on the exchange.

Much better!

Thanks!

[donch]

Order volume precision has been increased to 3 decimal places in Kraken market data. Order volume data is still being rounded up as stated above, except now it's being rounded up in the third decimal place.

So, for example, an order with an actual volume of 1.0341 will appear in the order book as a volume of 1.035.

We hope this level of volume precision is more convenient for everyone and appreciate our users openly communicating with us about the features they would like to see on the exchange.

This sounds great and thanks for listening! I'll be pushing some trades your way as soon as this goes live :-)

Final question: when does this go live?

https://api.kraken.com/0/public/Depth?pair=XBTUSD

[Dargo]

Order volume precision has been increased to 3 decimal places in Kraken market data. Order volume data is still being rounded up as stated above, except now it's being rounded up in the third decimal place.

So, for example, an order with an actual volume of 1.0341 will appear in the order book as a volume of 1.035.

We hope this level of volume precision is more convenient for everyone and appreciate our users openly communicating with us about the features they would like to see on the exchange.

This sounds great and thanks for listening! I'll be pushing some trades your way as soon as this goes live :-)

Final question: when does this go live?

https://api.kraken.com/0/public/Depth?pair=XBTUSD

It's live on our market data page, but I'm checking on API now.

[Dargo]

^^^ There was an issue with API, but it's fixed now so you should see 3 digit decimal place precision via API as well.

[donch]

^^^ There was an issue with API, but it's fixed now so you should see 3 digit decimal place precision via API as well.

Thanks for the quick response! I can see the updated precision in the API now. Here's a snapshot dump:

Code:

{"error":[],"result":{"XXBTZUSD":{"asks":[["180.99000","1.000",1382812788],["181.09000","1.000",1382812790],["181.49000","2.000",1382812791],["181.99000","5.000",1382812793],["182.10779","2.318",1382816070],["183.14787","2.311",1382814912],["184.00000","4.000",1382803434],["184.18721","2.301",1382799994],["185.00000","0.068",1382783772],["185.22970","2.304",1382799185],["186.25941","2.393",1382805478],["187.29523","2.360",1382815870],["195.00000","69.600",1382815830]],"bids":[["180.10000","1.000",1382812787],["176.74142","2.391",1382805850],["175.72506","2.200",1382794683],["175.00000","0.200",1382816691],["174.69205","2.257",1382799184],["174.11000","10.000",1382769865],["173.66816","2.233",1382799994],["172.64736","2.309",1382814911],["171.63269","2.356",1382816154],["162.00000","36.700",1382815828],["160.00000","0.275",1382654380],["150.00000","0.500",1382652252],["128.00000","0.220",1381961554],["116.54000","0.560",1381201402],["115.60000","0.850",1381201417],["113.00000","0.350",1381201510],["111.80000","0.365",1381201438]]}}}

I can see that the first ask is of volume 1.000. Can I therefore assume the lowest ask is, in reality, between 0.9991 1.0000?

It just seems that there are a high percentage of orders with volumes around whole integers, which given order books on other exchanges is highly unusual...

It does feel like going around the houses a bit. My use case is simple, I want to find the lowest asks or highest bids, and match them exactly with the opposite trade on another exchange. If the difference is greater than the fees involved, profit! The wonderful world of arbitrage :-)

However, to do this I need to be certain that my volume calculations are highly accurate, especially when the trade might span multiple orders. Due to the binning approach, I can make guesstimates on the minimum, but the trades present now on your orderbook seem a bit too conveniently rounded to be realistic. Bit confusing...

My honest advice is just open your orderbook and be transparent, like all the other exchanges. Sure, dark orders, if you want. People will come if you are easy to use. This binning is far too confusing and undocumented to interpret.

 

[Dargo]

^^^ There was an issue with API, but it's fixed now so you should see 3 digit decimal place precision via API as well.

Thanks for the quick response! I can see the updated precision in the API now. Here's a snapshot dump:

Code:

{"error":[],"result":{"XXBTZUSD":{"asks":[["180.99000","1.000",1382812788],["181.09000","1.000",1382812790],["181.49000","2.000",1382812791],["181.99000","5.000",1382812793],["182.10779","2.318",1382816070],["183.14787","2.311",1382814912],["184.00000","4.000",1382803434],["184.18721","2.301",1382799994],["185.00000","0.068",1382783772],["185.22970","2.304",1382799185],["186.25941","2.393",1382805478],["187.29523","2.360",1382815870],["195.00000","69.600",1382815830]],"bids":[["180.10000","1.000",1382812787],["176.74142","2.391",1382805850],["175.72506","2.200",1382794683],["175.00000","0.200",1382816691],["174.69205","2.257",1382799184],["174.11000","10.000",1382769865],["173.66816","2.233",1382799994],["172.64736","2.309",1382814911],["171.63269","2.356",1382816154],["162.00000","36.700",1382815828],["160.00000","0.275",1382654380],["150.00000","0.500",1382652252],["128.00000","0.220",1381961554],["116.54000","0.560",1381201402],["115.60000","0.850",1381201417],["113.00000","0.350",1381201510],["111.80000","0.365",1381201438]]}}}

I can see that the first ask is of volume 1.000. Can I therefore assume the lowest ask is, in reality, between 0.9991 1.0000?

Yes

It just seems that there are a high percentage of orders with volumes around whole integers, which given order books on other exchanges is highly unusual...

It does feel like going around the houses a bit. My use case is simple, I want to find the lowest asks or highest bids, and match them exactly with the opposite trade on another exchange. If the difference is greater than the fees involved, profit! The wonderful world of arbitrage :-)

However, to do this I need to be certain that my volume calculations are highly accurate, especially when the trade might span multiple orders. Due to the binning approach, I can make guesstimates on the minimum, but the trades present now on your orderbook seem a bit too conveniently rounded to be realistic. Bit confusing...

My honest advice is just open your orderbook and be transparent, like all the other exchanges. Sure, dark orders, if you want. People will come if you are easy to use. This binning is far too confusing and undocumented to interpret.

I understand. It does seem a bit odd, but it could be that this is from before when the precision was so low - maybe that induced people to go with whole amounts. It's my preference too to just completely open the order book, but some of the devs disagree. But this is a big improvement at least.

[Newar]

I understand. It does seem a bit odd, but it could be that this is from before when the precision was so low - maybe that induced people to go with whole amounts. It's my preference too to just completely open the order book, but some of the devs disagree. But this is a big improvement at least.

Maybe because there aren't that many bots yet?



Another request: (Optional) email confirmations, once all orders are filled (per currency pair) would be nice.

[oblongmeteor]

Perhaps it's time for you guys to incentivize some volume traders onto your platform by offering - say - 0% fees for three months across the board, alongside a heavy promotional advertising campaign (take a leaf out of the Chinese exchange book).

Kraken is a fantastic platform and you've all clearly put a lot of work into it, so it seems a real shame to see it continue to languish at the bottom of the pack, especially when it deserves so much more.

[Loozik]

Perhaps it's time for you guys to incentivize some volume traders onto your platform by offering - say - 0% fees for three months across the board, alongside a heavy promotional advertising campaign (take a leaf out of the Chinese exchange book).

0% fees for 3 months = no income for Kraken for 3 months.

Heavy advertising campaign = costs for Kraken.

Both = loss for Kraken's investors.

[RationalSpeculator]

Perhaps it's time for you guys to incentivize some volume traders onto your platform by offering - say - 0% fees for three months across the board, alongside a heavy promotional advertising campaign (take a leaf out of the Chinese exchange book).

0% fees for 3 months = no income for Kraken for 3 months.

Heavy advertising campaign = costs for Kraken.

Both = loss for Kraken's investors.

There is no income anyway, even with fees.

Stupidity is doing the same and expecting different results.

Something needs to change as the volume is not picking up, right?


I'm not sending anymore fiat for the time being since I couldn't deploy it when the market corrected (price didn't go down due to lack of liquidity).

I'll take my chances with btc-e and bitstamp, never again a startup exchange for me.

I think you need to start with the little fish to get liquidity going. The big fish will only come when some liquidity is already available.

However, why would the little fish come?

[Loozik]

There is no income anyway, even with fees.

There is some volume. Ergo there is some income. It should at least cover the cost of office coffee. The current income is surely not satisfactory for Kraken.

Stupidity is doing the same and expecting different results.

So true 

I think Kraken's offer is near sufficient to be called different from its competitors, e.g. leveraged trading! I would love to try it. Out of curiosity: what is the interest at which you lend? I didn't find that info on the website.

I think Krakens communication is not sufficient for what is needed to achieve success.

Something needs to change as the volume is not picking up, right?

Dargo, could this slow volume picking up be due to your jurisdiction ? Can you change jurisdiction?

[oblongmeteor]

0% fees for 3 months = no income for Kraken for 3 months.

Heavy advertising campaign = costs for Kraken.

Both = loss for Kraken's investors.

Despite what Gordon Gecko might have you believe; Unfettered Greed is not good.

Kraken appears to be the most competently engineered exchange - bar none...but no one is using it. Consider that Payward are at a juncture; they are the *first to market* with a second generation exchange that offers many features professional investors have been clamoring for (Trailing Stops, Limits etc) but conversely they are also entering a market now *saturated* by lesser competitors. Volume trumps all and Kraken will not retain its advantages for long - early capitalization on the platforms obvious technical advantages should be a no-brainer.

So, to win customers (and volume) they have to offer something the others do not - something to entice the sheep to see for themselves that the grass really is greener...0% fees for three months backed by targeted advertising is the most logical place to start. This approach will entice volume away from the market leaders in this space (Bitstamp, BTC-E and Mt Gox), some customers will inevitably leave at the end of the free period but given the features on offer (and barring any cock-ups on Paywards part) and the already competitive fee structure - it's pretty likely a significant portion will remain. The situation Payward are in now is no different than PayPal at their inception. PayPal actually *gave away* money to acquire new customers - no strings attached.

Remember; The key is not to be greedy in the short term; 3 months will entrench a degree of loyalty in the customer base - the same way it's working for the incumbents (BTC-E, Bitstamp etc).

As an aside; any investor who expects a platform entering such a competitive marketplace to be profitable off the bat is frankly deluding themselves as to the realities of real world business. Spend money to make money...

[Loozik]

Despite what Gordon Gecko might have you believe [...]

Come on, mentioning the name of a fictional movie character will not make your argument valid nor will it add any kind of glory to it.

Kraken appears to be the most competently engineered exchange.

True.

So, to win customers (and volume) they have to offer something the others do not - something to entice the sheep to see for themselves that the grass really is greener...0% fees for three months backed by targeted advertising is the most logical place to start.

This is where we disagree. Kraken already has very low fees and incurs heavy costs of their most modern platform. There are no cost / low cost possibilities that Kraken should explore prior to giving up their income and prior to incurring costs.

What could Kraken do at no or at low cost? They could have a YT channel and publish at no cost the videos of their platform's features, like:
- trailing stops, example: http://www.infinityfutures.com/ATtrailingstop.aspx
- leveraged trading: I wouldn't mind somebody from Kraken communicate to me what leveraged trading is about, how they calculate interest on fiat and how on crypto; I would like to know if I am making profit in fiat when long or in crypto when short, or is it rather vice versa, or rather in fiat irrespective of being long or short, etc.? Why wouldn't they tell me this in a short video?

I can imagine some of their staff due to no volume are already getting bored at work. They might do these videos to while away the boring time they have at the office.

YT channel is one of countless actions a marketing person at Kraken can do at no / low cost.

This approach will entice volume away from the market leaders [...]

Maybe it will, maybe it will not. We don't know it. Would you spend $25k of your own money to test it?

Remember; The key is not to be greedy in the short term [...]

Please spare this talk for your greedy boss.

As an aside; any investor who expects a platform entering such a competitive marketplace to be profitable off the bat is frankly deluding themselves as to the realities of real world business. Spend money to make money...

In high tech intensive services and in a market such dynamic as crypto expectations of being profitable quickly are justified. If you don't get quick results then your business was either badly planned or your business plan was badly executed.

[oblongmeteor]

In high tech intensive services and in a market such dynamic as crypto expectations of being profitable quickly are justified. If you don't get quick results then your business was either badly planned or your business plan was badly executed.

I... if that's how you honestly think making a splash in a competitive industry works, I guess we'll just skip straight to the shovel and gravestone scene.

[Dargo]

Another request: (Optional) email confirmations, once all orders are filled (per currency pair) would be nice.

Thanks for the suggestion - I'll make sure this gets considered. One of my (stock) brokers doesn't have email confirmations and it's a feature I always miss.