Integration
Trade Kraken with NautilusTrader
Stream Kraken Spot and Futures market data and execute orders through an adapter written in Rust, with REST and WebSocket access, Spot L3 market-by-order data, spot margin trading, and full order and position reconciliation.
Spot and derivatives exchange
Spot, perpetuals, and futures
Data and execution
Written in Rust 🦀
Founded in 2011, Kraken is one of the longest-running cryptocurrency exchanges, known for security, regulatory compliance, and deep-liquidity markets across Europe and globally. Kraken Pro spans spot trading with margin on selected pairs and Kraken Derivatives (Futures): USD-margined and inverse perpetual swaps alongside fixed-maturity and flex futures, all reached over REST and WebSocket.
NautilusTrader integrates with Kraken Pro through nautilus-kraken, a platform adapter written in Rust with Python bindings, providing both data and execution clients. It streams order books, quotes, trades, bars, and mark, index, and funding updates, and handles request signing and authentication in the Rust core rather than calling an external Kraken SDK. Order, fill, and position updates drive reconciliation across both Spot and Futures.
The adapter also wires up the venue-specific machinery that matters in production: Kraken's authenticated level3 channel delivers Spot market-by-order data with CRC32 checksum validation, spot margintrading validates leverage tiers before submission, and Spot orders route through Kraken's WebSocket v2 trade channel with an automatic REST fallback. Each client targets a single product type, Spot or Futures.
Products
Spot with margin, USD-margined and inverse perpetual swaps, and dated futures, each reached through a client configured for one product type.
Spot
Cash and margin pairs
Standard cryptocurrency pairs quoted in USD, EUR, USDT, and more, with leveraged margin available on selected pairs. Bitcoin is normalized from Kraken's XBT to BTC at load time.
USD, EUR, and USDT quoting
Margin on selected pairs
ISO 4217 symbols, XBT normalized to BTC
BTC/USD.KRAKEN
USD-margined perpetuals
Multi-collateral, PF_
Linear perpetual swaps margined and settled in USD, prefixed PF_. These multi-collateral contracts make up the bulk of Kraken's derivatives listings.
USD-settled linear swaps
Hundreds of listed contracts
Mark, index, and funding feeds
PF_XBTUSD.KRAKEN
Inverse perpetuals
Coin-settled, PI_
Perpetual swaps prefixed PI_, quoted in USD but margined and settled in the base coin, so a Bitcoin contract carries Bitcoin as collateral.
Quoted in USD, settled in coin
Bitcoin, Ether, Litecoin, and XRP
Perpetual funding
PI_XBTUSD.KRAKEN
Dated futures
Fixed maturity and flex
Fixed-maturity futures that date the symbol, listed as inverse (FI_) and flex (FF_) contracts on quarterly expiry cycles alongside the perpetual swaps.
Inverse (FI_) and flex (FF_) contracts
Fixed, dated expiries
Same adapter as the perpetuals
FI_XBTUSD_260925.KRAKEN
Markets
Crypto majors across more than 1,500 spot pairs and roughly 320 futures contracts, spanning USD-margined and inverse perpetuals and dated futures.
Spot · USD, EUR, and USDT quoted
BTC
Bitcoin
ETH
Ethereum
SOL
Solana
XRP
XRP
ADA
Cardano
DOT
Polkadot
LINK
Chainlink
AVAX
Avalanche
ATOM
Cosmos
LTC
Litecoin
DOGE
Dogecoin
UNI
Uniswap
AAVE
Aave
ALGO
Algorand
TRX
TRON
FIL
Filecoin
+ More
Spot pairs quote in USD, EUR, USDT, and more, e.g. BTC/USD and ETH/EUR. The adapter normalizes Kraken's XBT to BTC at load time, so Bitcoin trades as BTC/USD rather than XBT/USD.
USD-margined perpetuals · Multi-collateral, PF_
XBT
Bitcoin
ETH
Ethereum
SOL
Solana
XRP
XRP
ADA
Cardano
DOT
Polkadot
LINK
Chainlink
ATOM
Cosmos
BCH
Bitcoin Cash
LTC
Litecoin
UNI
Uniswap
FIL
Filecoin
+ More
USD-margined perpetual swaps carry the PF_ prefix, e.g. PF_XBTUSD (Bitcoin) and PF_ETHUSD(Ethereum). Futures keep Kraken's native XBT rather than BTC.
Inverse perpetuals · Coin-settled, PI_
XBT
Bitcoin
ETH
Ethereum
LTC
Litecoin
XRP
XRP
Inverse perpetual swaps carry the PI_ prefix and settle in the base coin: PI_XBTUSD, PI_ETHUSD, PI_LTCUSD, and PI_XRPUSD.
Dated futures · Fixed maturity and flex
XBT
Bitcoin
ETH
Ethereum
SOL
Solana
LTC
Litecoin
XRP
XRP
Fixed-maturity contracts add a date to the symbol, e.g. FI_XBTUSD_260925 (inverse, 25 Sep 2026) and FF_ETHUSD_260925 (flex). These expire on fixed dates rather than running perpetually.
These are a representative sample. Kraken lists more than 1,500 spot pairs and around 320 futures contracts, and adds new ones continuously; the adapter discovers the live instrument set at startup and maps each supported Kraken symbol to a NautilusTrader instrument.
Capabilities
Spot and futures
Spot pairs, USD-margined and inverse perpetual swaps, and dated futures, each reached through a client configured for a single product type.
HMAC-SHA512 signing
An API key and secret authenticate private access in the Rust core: HMAC-SHA512 signs REST requests, Spot WebSocket sessions use a REST-issued token, and Futures WebSocket signs a server challenge.
Data and execution
One adapter covers both market data and order execution, with order, fill, and position reconciliation across Spot and Futures.
L3 market-by-order
Kraken's authenticated level3 channel delivers Spot per-order book data with venue order IDs and CRC32 checksum validation that resyncs on mismatch.
Spot margin trading
Trade selected pairs on leverage, with per-order tiers validated against Kraken's advertised buy and sell tiers before an order ever reaches the venue.
WebSocket v2 order routing
Spot orders route through Kraken's authenticated WebSocket v2 trade channel by default, falling back to REST automatically when the socket is inactive.
Data feeds
Each Kraken feed maps to a native NautilusTrader data type across the Spot and Futures streams.
Data feed
NautilusTrader type
Notes
Order book (L2)
OrderBookDeltasSnapshot then deltas over WebSocket; Spot and Futures L2 updates.
Order book (L3, market-by-order)
OrderBookDeltasSpot per-order book over the authenticated level3 channel, with venue order IDs and CRC32 checksum validation.
Quotes
QuoteTickBest bid and offer derived from the ticker channel on Spot and Futures.
Trades
TradeTickLive public trades on Spot and Futures, with REST history.
Bars
BarSpot WebSocket OHLC from 1 minute to 15 days; Futures bars are historical over REST.
Mark price
MarkPriceUpdateMark price from the Futures ticker feed.
Index price
IndexPriceUpdateUnderlying index price from the Futures ticker feed.
Funding rate
FundingRateUpdatePerpetual funding from the Futures ticker; the interval is unset because Kraken does not publish one.
Instruments
CurrencyPairTokenizedAssetCryptoPerpetualSpot pairs, tokenized equities (xStocks), and futures contracts discovered at startup.
Status
InstrumentStatusTrading-status transitions per instrument.
Order types
Kraken supports these Nautilus order types across Spot and Futures; the two trailing-stop variants are Spot only.
Type
Spot
Futures
Notes
Time in force
GTC and IOC are native on both markets. Good-till-date and fill-or-kill are Spot only.
Execution features
The execution instructions and account operations traders rely on.
Post-only
Maker-only limit orders on both Spot and Futures, rejected rather than filled if they would cross the book.
Reduce-only
Position-reducing flag on Futures and on Spot margin orders; Kraken rejects it when no matching position exists.
Order modification
Amend price and quantity on resting orders in place, over the WebSocket v2 trade channel on Spot, with a REST fallback, and over REST on Futures.
Trigger types
Evaluate conditional orders against the last price or index price on both markets, or the mark price on Futures; unsupported references are rejected at submission.
Iceberg orders
Show only part of a Spot order to the book with a display quantity, keeping the remainder hidden.
Quote-quantity orders
Size Spot orders in the quote currency with volume-in-quote-currency, so a buy is expressed in dollars rather than base units.
Data and execution clients
Data client
Public and authenticated REST and WebSocket streams
Feeds: order books at L2 and Spot L3, quotes, trades, bars, and mark, index, and funding updates.
Products: one client per product type, `SPOT` or `FUTURES`, selected by config; a single client does not span both markets.
Resilience: reconnecting WebSocket with snapshot-and-buffer book recovery, plus CRC32 checksum validation and resync on the Spot L3 channel.
Execution client
Signed orders over Spot WebSocket v2 with a REST fallback, and Futures REST
Orders: entry, in-place amend, conditional triggers, and trailing orders, with batch submit and batch cancel chunked to Kraken's limits.
Account: order, fill, and position updates drive reconciliation across Spot and Futures, including margin balances and open positions.
Margin: opt-in Spot margin with per-order leverage tiers validated against the venue before submission.
How the integration works
Adapter crate
Data client
KrakenDataClient streams instruments, books at L2 and Spot L3, quotes, trades, bars, and mark, index, and funding updates.Execution client
KrakenExecutionClient handles signed orders, account queries, and reconciliation.Signing
Product types
CurrencyPair, plus TokenizedAsset for xStocks) and Futures (CryptoPerpetual), one product type per client.Environments
KrakenEnvironment; demo is Futures only.Authentication
Considerations
Public market data needs no credentials; execution needs an API key and secret, and the Spot L3 market-by-order channel is authenticated, so it needs Spot credentials too.
Each Kraken client is configured for a single product type, SPOT or FUTURES; one client does not span both markets, and Spot and Futures use separate credentials.
Spot normalizes Bitcoin to BTC (e.g. BTC/USD), whether XBT appears as the base or quote currency, while Futures keep Kraken's native XBT (e.g. PI_XBTUSD).
Instrument IDs use ISO 4217 symbols for Spot (BTC/USD.KRAKEN) and Kraken's prefixed symbols for Futures: PI_ inverse perpetual, PF_ USD-margined perpetual, and FI_ and FF_ dated contracts.
Kraken's tokenized equities (xStocks) load as Spot TokenizedAsset instruments in the equity asset class, fetched under Kraken's tokenized-asset class flag.
Private access is authenticated in the Rust core: REST requests are signed with HMAC-SHA512 over a nonce and body, Spot WebSocket sessions authenticate with a token from a signed REST call, and Futures WebSocket signs a server-issued challenge.
Spot orders route through Kraken's WebSocket v2 trade channel by default, falling back to REST; some order shapes, such as trailing stops and iceberg orders, always route via REST.
Spot margin trading is opt-in per execution client; requested leverage tiers are validated against the venue's advertised buy and sell tiers, and an invalid tier is denied before it reaches the venue.
Bars stream over WebSocket on Spot only, buffered and emitted one period late so only complete bars are published; internal aggregation from trades is recommended for lower latency.
Funding rate updates carry no interval because Kraken's ticker feed does not publish one.
Batch submit chunks at 15 orders on Spot and 10 on Futures, batch cancel auto-chunks at 50, and batch modify is Futures only.
Cancel-all ignores order side; on Spot it clears every symbol, while on Futures it requires an instrument and clears that symbol only.
Order lists, OCO, and bracket orders are not supported; stop and take-profit conditional orders are.
Only Kraken Futures offers a demo environment for paper trading; Kraken Spot has no demo or testnet.
Kraken's counter-based rate limit rewards longer reconciliation intervals; the guide recommends conservative open- and position-check settings, especially on the Starter tier.
Quickstarts
Starting points for the Kraken adapter.
Read the integration guide
Installation, account setup, configuration, symbology, order handling, reconciliation, and environments for the Kraken adapter.
Read guide
Hurst/VPIN strategy tutorial
Backtest a directional Hurst-exponent and VPIN strategy on the PF_XBTUSD Kraken Futures perpetual, wired end to end in the Rust core.
Read tutorial
Rust adapter examples
Runnable example nodes bundled with the crate: market data and execution testers, plus a live Hurst/VPIN trading node.
View on GitHub
Python live examples
Live data and execution tester scripts wiring the Kraken adapter into a Python trading node.
View on GitHub
Integration guide
Read the full integration guide
The guide covers installation, account setup, configuration, symbology, order handling, spot margin, rate limits, and worked examples for trading Kraken.
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