The availability of margin trading services is subject to certain limitations and eligibility criteria.
Kraken maintains margin pools in 23 cryptocurrencies and four cash currencies, which allow you to trade using margin.
The margin allowance limits for each currency are shown below, these values represent the maximum amount of the asset you are permitted to borrow from the Kraken margin pool.
| Asset | Allowance |
|---|---|
|
CAD* |
300,000 |
|
EUR* |
5,000,000 |
|
GBP* |
300,000 |
|
USD* |
7,500,000 |
|
ADA |
1,000,000 |
|
ALGO |
100,000 |
|
ATOM |
10,000 |
|
BCH |
500 |
|
BTC |
300 |
|
DASH |
500 |
|
DOT |
35,000 |
|
EOS |
50,000 |
|
ETC |
3,000 |
|
ETH |
3,000 |
|
FIL |
2,000 |
|
LINK |
20,000 |
|
LTC |
5,000 |
|
OMG |
20,000 |
|
REP |
500 |
|
TRX |
2,000,000 |
|
USDC |
1,000,000 |
|
USDT |
2,000,000 |
|
XLM |
500,000 |
|
XMR |
600 |
|
XRP |
800,000 |
|
XTZ |
100,000 |
|
ZEC |
600 |
*CAD, EUR, GBP and USD margin allowance limits only apply to long positions. See below for further explanation.
If you try to open a spot position on margin that exceeds your allowance limits, you will see a "Margin allowance exceeded" error.
Margin allowance limits are separate for each currency. So clients could use up to 10,000 ATOM and 300,000 GBP from our margin pools at the same time (assuming there are funds available in the pool).
Margin allowance limits are a total per currency, not a total per position. So a client can create a single BTC/USD long position for 7,500,000 USD, or ten BTC/USD long positions at 750,000 USD each.
Margin allowance limits are reset when you close a position, which automatically repays the funds to our margin pool.
Note: Where the margin pool funds are derived from depends on the trading pair and whether you are long or short.
For a crypto-to-cash pair like BTC/USD:
- To go long (i.e. buy BTC), funds from the USD pool are used and thus the USD allowance limits apply.
- To go short (i.e. sell BTC), funds from the BTC pool are used and thus the BTC allowance limits apply.
For a crypto-to-crypto pair like ETH/BTC:
- To go long (i.e. buy ETH), funds from the BTC pool are used and thus the BTC allowance limits apply.
- To go short (i.e. sell ETH), funds from the ETH pool are used and thus the ETH allowance limits apply.
Note: The limits for going short are not supposed to be the same as the limits for going long. Limits are not based on the exchange rate. They are based on how much of each currency we have available in our margin pools.
Your account is verified and you want to open a long position in BTC/GBP. The maximum size of your long position, assuming you had enough collateral to open it, and you do not exceed the margin position limit, would be 300,000 GBP worth of bitcoin. The number of bitcoins that it would be possible to buy in these positions would depend on the current price of bitcoin. The limit would not be 300 bitcoin.
If you wanted to open a short position in bitcoin against USD, EUR or ETH, the limit on the size of the position would be 300 bitcoin because when you are shorting bitcoin, you are using Kraken’s funds from the BTC margin pool.
The decimal and thousands separators shown in this article may differ from the formats displayed on our trading platforms. Review our article on how we use points and commas for more information.