Kraken and Coinbase compared on what decides the bill for an Australian: the real cost of an AUD buy, whether there is an AUD book to trade against, and who you are contracting with.
Trade on Krakenkraken.com
Trade on Coinbasecoinbase.com
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Three costs kept apart, because they are not the same thing: the published trading fee, the AUD conversion a venue with no AUD book forces on you, and the measured cost of crossing its order book. Click any route for the detail.
Execution. Crosses its own AUD book, measured below.
Taker rate plus the measured cost of crossing the book.
Execution. Posting rather than taking avoids the crossing cost entirely.
You pay the maker rate and no spread, at the price of an uncertain fill.
Execution. Its book is quoted in USDT, so an AUD balance is converted first.
The book is real but not reachable in AUD. The conversion is modelled from the exchanges table.
Execution. Posting rather than taking avoids the crossing cost entirely.
You pay the maker rate and no spread, at the price of an uncertain fill.
Krakenbuying
A$494k
27%0.015%0.015%0.015%0.029%0.043%0.056%
Krakenselling
A$323k
22%0.032%0.038%0.040%0.052%0.080%too big
For an AUD buy, Kraken. Past that it depends on what you are doing.
These two are scored here for one job: an Australian funding an account in Australian dollars. The pillars above re-weight the same evidence for that reader, which is why they can disagree with the global Coindaily Score.
KrakenKrakenCoinbaseCoinbaseKrakenOrder book depth is the least stable figure on this page and the easiest to re-check: the measurements here are a single snapshot. Fees and licence conditions change too, so click through to a source on any row that matters to your decision.
On the default route each one puts in front of you, Kraken. It lands at about 0.8% all in against 1.6%. Those figures are the published fee plus, where the platform has no AUD order book, the cost of converting Australian dollars first. Where we could walk a live book, the measured cost of crossing it is included too.
Kraken is the only one of the two with a public AUD order book we could measure. It shows a 0.029% touch spread with A$494,431 of asks inside 1% of mid. Coinbase gives an Australian no AUD book to execute against, so the price you get is a quote or the result of a conversion.
Both are on the AUSTRAC register. On our trust pillar, which weighs licensing, custody, audits and enforcement history from the sourced facts on each review, Kraken scores 72 and Coinbase scores 88. AUSTRAC registration is anti-money-laundering registration, not a financial services licence, and it says nothing about whether your balance is protected.
Kraken scores 77 and Coinbase scores 83 on asset range, which counts what is listed and weighs how much of it is actually reachable in Australian dollars. A large catalogue priced only against USDT is worth less to an Australian buyer than a smaller one priced in AUD.
Yes, and plenty of Australians do: one platform as the AUD door, the other as the trading venue. Moving crypto between them costs a network fee, so it is only worth the extra step if the fee gap covers it. Both report to AUSTRAC and the ATO's data matching program either way.
KrakenCoinbase