Kraken

Kraken is a crypto exchange, founded in San Francisco in 2011 and owned by Payward, Inc. This page is about Kraken the exchange and what it offers on Solana. You can buy and sell SOL on Kraken, stake it for rewards, and send it to your own wallet. Since June 2026 the Kraken app also lets you buy Solana tokens on-chain. Kraken is behind xStocks, the stock tokens issued on Solana, and it runs a large Solana validator. In most of these products Kraken holds your coins for you. That means you are trusting a company, not code.

How Kraken works for Solana users: exchange account vs on-chain

Kraken gives Solana users two different setups, and the difference is who holds the keys. In a normal Kraken account, Kraken holds your SOL and tokens and records your balance in its own books. Trades happen on Kraken's order book and never touch the Solana network. The newer on-chain products work the other way: you hold the assets in a wallet, and trades settle on Solana.

That split matters when you compare products. Staking, spot trading, margin and futures all sit on the custodial side. On-chain token trading in the Kraken app and the separate Kraken Wallet app sit on the self-custody side.

SOL moves between the two through deposits and withdrawals on the Solana network. Kraken charges a withdrawal fee and sets a minimum for each asset, and its fee schedule says the final fee is shown when you confirm the withdrawal.

Kraken Solana staking: flexible vs bonded SOL rewards, fees and unstaking

Kraken offers two ways to stake SOL: flexible and bonded. Flexible staking lets you unstake at any moment, but Kraken stakes only part of your balance and pays rewards on up to 50% of it. Bonded staking puts your SOL to work in full and pays more, but the Kraken SOL staking page lists a three-day wait to get it back. Rewards on both are paid weekly, and there is no minimum.

Kraken's cut comes out of your rewards. Its staking overview, last updated in August 2026, sets the commission at 30% of rewards for flexible staking. Bonded staking costs 25% of rewards for accounts under $1 million. Larger accounts pay less, on a sliding scale. Kraken charges no separate fee to stake or unstake.

Here is what that means for you. Put 100 SOL into flexible staking and at most 50 SOL earns rewards. Kraken then keeps 30% of those. You end up with about a third of what the same SOL would earn before fees. Put the same SOL into bonded staking and all of it earns, with Kraken keeping a quarter. Rates move with the network, so check the staking page for the rate on the day.

While SOL is bonded you cannot trade it or withdraw it. Kraken says it will pay you back for slashing penalties, with listed exceptions. Staking is limited by country and by US state.

Buying Solana tokens on-chain in the Kraken app

Kraken added on-chain token trading to its main app on 18 June 2026, with Solana as the first network. You can buy close to 2,500 Solana tokens with USD or USDC from the same app you already use. You do not set up a wallet or write down a seed phrase. Kraken says the list includes early-stage tokens that centralized exchanges have not listed yet.

The feature runs on embedded wallets from Privy and on Solana DEX protocols that Kraken does not name, according to Kraken's launch post. Kraken says the wallet is self-custodial and that it does not hold your assets or private keys. It was open to customers in the US and more than 100 other countries at launch, and Kraken plans to add other networks. We covered the launch in Kraken embeds on-chain Solana DEX trading in its app.

The trade-off is that the exchange's usual vetting does not apply here. Kraken states that it has not reviewed or approved the tokens on offer, and that it does not control execution or guarantee the fill, timing or price of an order.

Tokenized stocks on Solana: Kraken's xStocks, wallet access and yield vaults

xStocks AAPLx$344.26+0.4% are tokens that track the price of US stocks and ETFs, and Kraken is the company behind them. Kraken launched them on Solana with Backed in 2025 and agreed to buy Backed in December 2025. They trade around the clock on-chain. They are not available in the US, Canada, the UK or Australia.

An xStock gives you price exposure and nothing more. Kraken's xStocks legal page says holders do not own the underlying shares and have no voting rights or legal claim on them. Dividends are reinvested into more of the same token instead of being paid in cash. The tokens are issued by Backed Assets (JE) Limited, a Jersey company, so you carry the issuer's credit risk as well as the stock's.

Two things changed in the third quarter of 2026. In late August, xStocks said its full range of more than 700 tokenized stocks and ETFs was live inside Kraken Wallet. On 14 September 2026, Kraken launched yield vaults for SPYx, QQQx and NVDAx. The vaults lend the tokens out on Kamino Finance KMNO$0.040+3.2%, a Solana lending market, with Veda running the vaults and Sentora managing the strategy, Cointelegraph reported. Yield is paid in the same xStock, withdrawals take up to three days, and the UAE joins the list of excluded countries. Our report on the xStocks vaults has the detail.

Kraken Wallet for SOL, SPL tokens and Solana NFTs

Kraken Wallet is a free phone app where you hold your own keys. It is not the same thing as a Kraken exchange account. You can use it without one, and Kraken does not hold what is in it. The wallet works on Solana and seven other networks, among them Bitcoin, Ethereum and Base. It holds SOL and other Solana tokens, and it shows your Solana NFTs.

Kraken says the wallet is open source, and the code is public at github.com/krakenfx/wallet. Kraken also says the app does not track your IP address or share your personal data. The Kraken Wallet Solana page lists apps for iPhone and Android and says you can connect the wallet to on-chain apps. As with any wallet you control, if you lose your recovery phrase you lose the funds.

Kraken Custody for institutions holding SOL and SPL tokens

Kraken Custody is the service for funds, firms and Solana project teams that must keep assets with a regulated custodian. In the US it is run by Kraken Financial, the Wyoming-chartered bank Kraken set up in 2020. Clients can stake or trade straight from custody where those services are offered.

In May 2026, Kraken Custody added 18 Solana tokens, among them JITOSOL, MSOL, JUP, PYTH, RAY and BONK. Kraken says client assets sit in accounts kept apart from its own, so they stay separate if the company fails. Each client sets rules for who can approve a transfer. A related bundle, Kraken 360, adds listings, liquidity and treasury help for teams launching a token.

The Kraken validator and its Solana governance votes

Kraken runs a large validator on Solana, so it gets a vote when the network decides on changes. A validator is a computer that checks transactions, and its vote counts in line with the SOL staked to it. In August 2026, Solana voted on SGP-0002, a plan to cut SOL inflation faster. Kraken held about 8.9 million SOL of voting power in that vote, Decrypt reported.

Kraken voted against the plan for most of the voting period. It then switched sides in the last hour before the vote closed. The plan passed with 67.0% support, just over the two-thirds it needed, so the switch mattered. Co-CEO Arjun Sethi explained it by saying "Custodians should be conduits, not voices." We told the full story in SGP-0002 passes.

If you stake SOL through Kraken, Kraken casts the vote and you have no say. If you stake from your own wallet, you can pick a validator whose votes you agree with. Our validator pages show the Kraken validator's commission and track record.

Who Kraken suits for Solana, and who it doesn't

Kraken suits people who want SOL without a wallet to manage. It fits you if you are buying SOL with dollars or euros from a bank account and want staking rewards in a few taps. You give up part of the reward so that you never handle keys. Kraken also fits firms that must use a regulated custodian.

Kraken is a weaker fit in three cases:

• You want to keep more of the staking reward. Kraken takes 25% to 30% of rewards on most accounts. Check that against what validators charge when you stake from your own wallet.
• You want to use staked SOL in DeFi. SOL staked on Kraken stays on Kraken. A liquid staking token can be traded or lent while it earns.
• You live where a product is blocked. xStocks are closed to the US, Canada, the UK and Australia. Staking depends on your country or state.

Active traders can use Kraken Pro, which offers margin and futures on SOL where local rules allow. Kraken still holds the coins.

Is Kraken safe? Custody, proof of reserves, incidents and regulatory record

Kraken has operated since 2011, and its one publicly disclosed exploit, in June 2024, hit company funds and not customer balances. Holding SOL there still means trusting a company with your coins. Kraken controls the keys to exchange balances. If Kraken froze withdrawals or failed, you would be a creditor waiting on a legal process. That is the main risk, and no audit removes it.

Kraken publishes evidence that it holds what it owes. Its proof of reserves for 30 June 2026 covered SOL and reported reserves slightly above client SOL balances. The Kraken security page lists an ISO 27001 certification and a SOC 2 report. A proof of reserves is a snapshot of one day and does not show every liability the company has.

Kraken's record has two blemishes worth knowing:

• In June 2024, a bug in the deposit system let accounts be credited without a completed deposit, and nearly $3 million was withdrawn from Kraken's own treasury. Chief security officer Nick Percoco said no client assets were at risk, and the security firm CertiK returned the funds, The Block reported.
• In February 2023, Kraken paid $30 million to settle SEC charges over its staking program and stopped staking for US customers. It relaunched US staking in January 2025 in most states. A second SEC lawsuit, filed in late 2023, was dismissed with prejudice in March 2025.

Each product adds its own risk. On-chain trading exposes you to tokens Kraken has not vetted. The xStocks vaults add the risks of DeFi lending on top of issuer risk. Kraken has no Solana programs of its own listed with us, so there is no program upgrade key to assess; the on-chain risk sits with the third-party protocols it routes through.

Kraken vs Coinbase, native staking and liquid staking: the alternatives for SOL

The main choice for a SOL holder is between an exchange like Kraken and staking from your own wallet. Coinbase is the exchange most people weigh against Kraken. It works the same basic way: the exchange holds your SOL, picks the validator and keeps a share of the rewards. Check the cut each one takes on the day, since that sets what you keep.

Staking from your own wallet is the other route. You move SOL to a wallet you control and assign it to a validator. The SOL stays in your wallet the whole time, and the only fee is that validator's commission. You can compare validators by commission and uptime before you choose.

Liquid staking is the third option. You swap SOL for a token that earns staking rewards and can still be used in Solana DeFi. Our stake pool comparison lists them.

A disclosure: Solana Compass runs its own validator and liquid staking token, so we compete with Kraken for staked SOL. You can see how that works on our staking page.

Kraken company history, ownership and IPO status

Kraken was founded in 2011 by Jesse Powell, Thanh Luu and Michael Gronager. Its parent company is Payward, Inc. Dave Ripley took over from Powell as CEO in 2023, and Powell became chairman. Arjun Sethi joined as co-CEO a year later.

Kraken is still a private company. Payward filed a confidential draft for a stock market listing in November 2025. The listing has slipped since then. CoinDesk reported in early September 2026 that Payward does not plan to list before the second quarter of 2027, according to Finance Magnates. Kraken declined to comment on that report.