Coinhako vs Kraken – Which Platform Is Better?

Last updated on June 6th, 2021

Kraken is a rather popular platform that you can trade crypto on. However, it does not allow you to trade crypto directly from SGD!

So how does it compare with Coinhako, which allows you to buy currencies with SGD?

Here’s what you need to know.

The difference between Coinhako and Kraken

Coinhako allows you to buy 30 different currencies directly from SGD. Although Kraken offers many more currencies compared to Coinhako, it does not support SGD on their platform. This may make it more troublesome, as you’ll have to either send another fiat currency (e.g. USD) or send a cryptocurrency to Kraken.

Here’s an in-depth comparison between these 2 exchanges:

Founder

Coinhako is a cryptocurrency exchange that is based in Singapore and founded in 2014.

Meanwhile, Kraken was founded 3 years earlier, in 2011. Its headquarters are in the US, and it is one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world.

Number of currencies

Coinhako allows you fully trade 21 tokens. However, it has limited support for 9 other currencies:

Full support for 21 tokens

Coinhako allows you to Buy, Sell, Swap, Send or Receive 21 currencies on their platform.

Swapping refers to you switching between one cryptocurrency to another.

Some of the more well-known ones include:

1. BTC
2. ETH
3. DAI
4. LTC
5. XRP

Limited support for other tokens

Coinhako also has a few tokens that you can have on their platform. However, the functions that you can use with them are quite limited:

You are able to buy XMR and THETA, which can’t be found on other crypto exchanges that support SGD.

For trade-only tokens, you can only Buy, Sell or Swap these currencies. You are unable to send or receive them from external wallets.

For USDT and USDC, these are rather complicated. You are able to receive both USDT and USDC from external wallets.

However, they will be converted into USD and be credited into your USD wallet on Coinhako.

If you wish to withdraw from your USD wallet, you can only do so in the form of USDT or USDC too.

Kraken allows you to trade over 50 currencies

Kraken has much more currencies that are available on their platform!

This includes common currencies like ETH or LTC, as well as ‘rarer’ altcoins like ADA or DOGE.

Unlike Coinhako, Kraken is an exchange platform. If you want to transact between 2 different currencies, you’ll need to make sure they have a trading pair with each other!

Methods of funding your account

Coinhako allows you to deposit SGD using your Xfers account.

Xfers is a payment solution that allows you to transfer your money securely into the crypto exchanges.

It sort of acts like the middleman between your bank accounts and the platform.

Bank transfer

Coinhako allows you to send your SGD to their platform using FAST transfer as well.

The good thing is that you do not incur any fees. However, the FAST transfer may take longer to process compared to Xfers Direct Charge.

For Kraken, you are able to deposit your fiat currencies onto their platform.

However, you can’t deposit SGD into Kraken!

You can deposit other fiat currencies, like:

1. USD
2. EUR
3. JPY

This makes Kraken rather limited as it does not allow you to buy crypto directly from SGD.

Buying crypto

After you’ve funded your account, you will need to purchase your crypto. There are a few ways you can do so:

#1 Credit card

You can purchase crypto using a credit card for Coinhako,

as well as Kraken.

However, you can’t use SGD to buy crypto on Kraken! As such, you may incur a foreign currency conversion fee.

#2 Instant buy (Coinhako)

When you purchase crypto on Coinhako, you aren’t able to set the price.

You can only buy the crypto at the prevailing market rate, which you can see on the ‘Buy’ page.

If you check the current price on sites like CoinMarketCap, it may be slightly different from what you see on either platform.

#3 Trade (Kraken)

Kraken allows you to make trades on their platform.

There are 2 types of orders you can make with Kraken:

1. Limit
2. Market

Limit orders will allow you to determine the price of the crypto that you wish to pay.

Meanwhile, market orders will purchase your crypto at the current market price.

You can make even more types of orders on Kraken’s Advanced platform.

Instead of using the Instant Buy feature, you are able to set the price that you wish to buy your crypto at!

Withdrawal of funds

Coinhako allows you to withdraw your funds to your bank account.

For Kraken, you are able to withdraw your fiat currencies to your bank account.

However, you are unable to withdraw any SGD!

Sending and receiving crypto

Both Coinhako and Kraken allow you to send and receive crypto from external wallets.

You can only send and receive the 21 currencies on Coinhako.

For those currencies that you can’t send or receive them, the functions will be greyed out.

For Kraken, you are able to send and receive any of the currencies that are available on their platform.

Fees

The most important thing when it comes to trading crypto are the fees. You should try to minimise your fees as much as possible!

Here are some of the fees you may incur when using either platform:

#1 Buying and selling crypto

Here are the fees that you’ll be charged for both exchanges:

Coinhako charges a flat 1% fee

You will need to pay a flat 1% fee for any transaction you make with Coinhako.

The best part is that you are not charged a minimum fee! Even if you buy a small amount of crypto, you will still only be charged 1%.

However for a limited time, you can use the promo code ‘COINGECKO‘ to trade at only 0.8%.

Moreover if you are buying crypto using a credit or debit card, you will also be charged a 3% processing fee! This fee is charged by the payment provider and not by Coinhako.

Kraken charges up to 0.26% to trade on their platform

When you are trading on Kraken, you will be charged up to 0.26% for each trade you make.

The greater amount of trading you make within 30 days, the lower the fees you’ll need to pay!

In terms of trading fees, Kraken offers much more competitive fees compared to Coinhako.

#2 Sending and receiving fees

You may want to send or receive your crypto from an external wallet.

The fees that you incur when sending or receiving from Coinhako are dynamic. This depends on the network traffic and miner fees that Coinhako incurs.

Meanwhile, Kraken has a fixed fee for each currency you wish to withdraw from the platform.

There is a minimum withdrawal that you’ll need to hit, and the withdrawal fee is fixed too.

If you are withdrawing small sums of crypto each time, the withdrawal fees may be rather hefty!

Both platforms do not charge receiving fees

If you want to receive crypto from an external wallet, no fees are charged by either exchange.

However, you’ll need to consider the fees you incur when sending crypto from your external wallets!

You can consider Gemini which does not charge you any fees for your first 10 withdrawals per month.

Minimum amount to order

For Coinhako, you will need to make a minimum purchase of $45 for each order.

Meanwhile, the minimum trade amounts for Kraken depends on the currency.

Other features

Coinhako has rather limited features, apart from buying and selling crypto.

In contrast, Kraken allows you to stake some of your crypto too!

You can stake 7 different currencies on Kraken:

1. DOT
2. KSM
3. KAVA
4. ATOM
5. XTZ
6. FLOW
7. ETH

If you want to earn some rewards by staking your crypto, then Kraken may be a better platform for you!

Security

You may have heard of how crypto exchanges can be hacked, and these hackers can steal your crypto!

So how do these exchanges try and combat this?

Coinhako stores the majority of your currencies in a cold storage

Coinhako mentioned that they store the majority of your crypto in their ‘highly secure’ cold storage accounts.

Meanwhile, only a small percentage of your funds will be stored on their exchange. This helps to facilitate liquidity where you are able to sell or withdraw your funds.

If hackers are able to gain access to your holdings, they will only gain access to a small percentage on the exchange.

To get the rest of your funds, they will need to hack the cold storage account. This is much harder to do!

As such, most of your crypto with Coinhako will be safe and secure.

Coinhako also allows you to use 2FA apps like Authy to make your account extra secure.

Even with these measures, Coinhako was still hacked on 21st Feb 2020. Thankfully, only 20 users were affected, and any assets that were lost were reimbursed by Coinhako.

Kraken uses a similar approach too

Kraken stores 95% of all of its assets in cold storage too. Even if hackers gain access to their platform, they will not have access to all of your assets.

So far, Kraken has not been hacked, which is rather promising.

This is because other large crypto platforms like Binance or Coinmama have been hacked before.

As such, Kraken’s platform seems pretty secure!

Platforms

Here is how Coinhako’s web platform looks like,

and their mobile app.

Kraken has a web platform,

as well as two mobile apps: Kraken,

and Kraken Pro.

Both platforms have rather good user interfaces, which makes it really easy to manage your crypto!

Verdict

Here is a comparison between Coinhako and Kraken:

	Coinhako	Kraken
Year Founded	2014	2011
HQ	Singapore	US
Number of Currencies	30	50+
Funding Methods	Xfers  FAST	Bank transfer (but does not support SGD)
Methods of Buying	SGD Wallet (Direct Buy) Credit / Debit Card	Credit / Debit Card Trading Platform
Withdrawal of Funds	Bank Account	Bank transfer (but does not support SGD)
Deposit Fees	0.55% (Xfers) 0 (Inter-bank)	Depends on currency
Withdrawal Fees	SGD$2 per withdrawal	Depends on currency
Trading Fees	1%	Up to 0.26%
Sending Fees	Dynamic	Depends on currency
Minimum Per Trade	SGD $45	Depends on currency
Staking Feature	Absent	Present
Security	Cold storage + hot wallet	Cold storage + hot wallet
Platforms	Web + mobile app	Web + 2 mobile apps

So which platform should you choose? Ultimately, both platforms cater to very different needs:

Choose Coinhako if you want to buy crypto from SGD

Coinhako allows you to buy many currencies directly from SGD. This makes it really convenient, as you do not have to send your crypto to another platform like Binance!

Although the fees are much higher, it may be worth paying them to reduce the sending fees you’ll potentially incur.

Overall, Coinhako is great if you just want to buy crypto, and hold them for the long term.

Choose Kraken if you want to buy a larger variety of currencies

Although Coinhako already supports 30 different currencies, Kraken allows you to buy more than 50 currencies!

You are able to buy certain currencies not found on Coinhako, like EOS or XTZ.

The trading fees are much lower too!

However, the main disadvantage about Kraken is that it does not support SGD.

As such, the 2 main ways you can consider funding your Kraken account include:

1. Sending another fiat currency (e.g. USD)
2. Sending a cryptocurrency from another platform (e.g. BTC)

If you are looking to send over BTC to Kraken, you may want to consider Gemini. This is because you’ll incur rather low fees:

1. 0.35% when trading between SGD and BTC (on Gemini Active Trader)
2. 0% sending fees (if you make ≤ 10 withdrawals a month)

Moreover, Kraken has a staking feature, which allows you to earn rewards from staking your crypto!

Ultimately, Kraken provides a lot more features and currencies compared to Coinhako.

Conclusion

Both platforms offer you a way to purchase cryptocurrencies in Singapore.

In the end, the platform that you should choose may depend on these factors:

1. The currency that you wish to buy
2. The fees that you are willing to pay
3. The ability to deposit SGD

Are you passionate about personal finance and want to earn some flexible income?