Kraken Makes Advanced Crypto Trading Simple for Regular Investors

On September 11, 2025, the company introduced “Kraken Perps” – a simplified way to bet on crypto prices without actually buying the coins.

This launch comes at a perfect time. Crypto perpetual contracts hit a record $515 billion in trading volume during August 2025. These contracts, called “perps,” were mostly used by professional traders before. Now Kraken wants everyday investors to use them too.

Think of perpetual contracts like making a bet with a friend about who will win the championship. But instead of sports teams, you’re betting on whether Bitcoin, Ethereum, or other cryptocurrencies will go up or down in price.

The key difference is that you don’t need to own any crypto to make these trades. You can profit if you guess the price direction correctly, whether it goes up or down. Unlike regular contracts that expire on a set date, these “perpetual” contracts never expire. You can hold your position as long as you want or close it anytime.

To start trading, users fund their account with USD (more currencies coming later). Then they simply pick “Increase” if they think a crypto’s price will rise, or “Decrease” if they think it will fall. They also choose how much money to put into the trade.

Kraken designed these perps specifically for everyday investors, not just trading experts. The company spent time making the interface clean and easy to understand. They use simple language instead of complex trading terms that confuse beginners.

“Perpetuals have long been popular with advanced traders, but they’ve often felt out of reach for everyday investors. Kraken Perps is changing that,” the company stated in their announcement.

The platform includes safety features that weren’t available to regular traders before. Users can set up automatic stop-loss orders that limit how much money they can lose if their prediction goes wrong. Kraken also plans to release educational materials to help people learn how to trade responsibly.

This launch fits into Kraken’s bigger plan to expand beyond basic crypto trading. Earlier this year, the exchange added forex trading for major currency pairs like EUR/USD and GBP/USD. They also bought a prop trading platform called Breakout and launched tokenized stock trading in Europe.

All these moves prepare Kraken for going public in 2026. The company wants to offer more than just buying and selling crypto. They’re building a complete financial platform that competes with traditional brokers.

The timing makes sense because crypto derivatives trading is exploding. Perpetual contracts are now the most popular type of crypto derivative. Professional traders love them because they offer flexibility and don’t expire like regular futures contracts.

Kraken Perps launched in over 150 countries, though some regions have restrictions. The company plans to add more places where people can use this service. They’re also working to support more types of collateral beyond USD.

Right now, users can only access Kraken Perps through the main Kraken app, though the feature was already available on Kraken Pro for advanced users. The new version makes the same tools much easier to use for people who aren’t professional traders.

The exchange emphasizes that this isn’t about turning regular people into day traders. Instead, it gives them more ways to express their market opinions and manage investment risk. Users can adjust their position sizes if they become more confident in their predictions, or reduce exposure if they get nervous.

Kraken joins other major exchanges offering perpetual contracts to retail customers. The crypto derivatives market keeps growing as more people want sophisticated trading tools. Making these tools simple enough for everyday use could bring millions of new traders into the market.

For investors, Kraken Perps represent a new way to participate in crypto markets without the complexity that usually comes with derivatives trading. Whether this democratization of advanced trading tools proves successful will depend on how well regular investors adapt to these new capabilities.