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Kraken vs Gemini
Both US-regulated and both aimed at people who care more about custody risk than about fees.
Both links below are affiliate links — what that means. It does not change what is written here; every entry carries a drawback for the same reason.
Short answer
Choose Kraken if…Most people, most of the time — more assets, more products, longer record.
Visit Kraken →Choose Gemini if…The New York trust charter is the deciding factor for you, or you need a venue that can serve New York.
Visit Gemini →Side by side
| Kraken | Gemini | |
|---|---|---|
| Launched | 2011 | 2014 |
| Based / registered | United States | United States — a New York trust company |
| Who holds the assets | Custodial | Custodial |
| Identity verification | Required | Required |
| Available to US residents | Yes, with some products limited by state | Yes, including New York, which several competitors cannot serve |
| Products |
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What each one is actually good at
KrakenOne of the oldest exchanges still running, with a long record of publishing proof-of-reserves attestations and a security posture it has held through cycles that removed most of its contemporaries.
Worth knowing. Rebuilt its fee tiers in July 2026 so that spot and futures tiers are no longer calculated separately — if you last checked before that, your assumed rate is wrong. Check the schedule.
GeminiRegulated as a New York trust company, which is a genuinely higher bar than a money-transmitter licence and the reason it can operate where others cannot.
Worth knowing. Its Earn programme froze customer funds in the 2022 Genesis collapse and took years to resolve. That product is gone, but it is the right thing to know about the company's history.
What about the fees?
We do not print a fee table, and the reason is not laziness. Fee schedules change without notice — Kraken rebuilt its tier system in July 2026 — and a stale number on a page that earns from its links is worse than no number at all. So here are both live schedules, from the source:
Once you have both numbers, the trading fee calculator turns them into what a year of your actual trading would cost — which is the number that decides this, not the headline rate.
Before you commit
Availability changes. Regulators bar platforms, platforms withdraw from markets, and this page was last checked on 2026-08-05 — confirm on the platform’s own terms that it serves your country before you sign up.
And whichever you pick: an exchange balance is a trading float, not storage. Anything you are not actively trading belongs in a wallet you hold the keys to.