Kraken Unified Wallet turns every EEA balance into margin, Earn included

Kraken switched on its Unified Wallet for clients in the European Economic Area on 16 October. Spot, margin, Earn and futures balances now sit in one pool of shared collateral on Kraken Pro, covering more than 40 cryptocurrencies plus dollars, euros and gold. The Kraken Unified Wallet replaces the old split between accounts with a single balance the engine can see.

“No manual transfers. Your eligible balances are already available as margin”

— Kraken, Unified Wallet announcement

What changes for the trader

Eligible balances count as margin on their own, so a position no longer waits for a manual move between wallets, and unrealised profit on one trade counts toward margin on the next.

Cross margin is the default, and with it a loss on a futures position can draw against the whole eligible balance. The Earn holding that was collecting yield now backs a leveraged trade, and the separation that kept a bad day contained goes away unless the client switches to isolated margin.

What it means for the market

Kraken turns over $1.42bn a day and holds first place in CoinGecko's trust score ranking, against Binance at $10.83bn. This is a product change at a venue trading about an eighth of the largest one, and the exchange has leaned on that ranking for years. A stablecoin balance, a staked position and an open future now share one risk calculation.

Shared collateral is standard on derivatives venues, and Kraken is bringing it to a market where MiCA governs what a licensed firm may offer. BingX took an Austrian licence yesterday to reach the same 29 markets, joining a register of about 365 providers. Competition there runs on features like this one.

The toggle lives in profile settings on the web and in the preferences dropdown on mobile, and switching it on does not require closing existing positions. Anyone who wants the old behaviour keeps it by choosing isolated margin, where a position can only lose what sits behind it. Our exchange ranking measures what the top venues trade, and a feature that raises buying power without new deposits tends to show up in those numbers before it shows up anywhere else.

What settles later

Three things settle later. Whether Kraken publishes how many EEA clients turn cross margin on. Whether the first liquidation wave reaches Earn balances. And whether the rollout crosses to the US, where the same product meets a different regulator.

Informational material, not investment advice. Cross margin raises the amount a single losing position can draw on, and the isolated mode exists for anyone who does not want that.