Our latest Proof of Reserves covered the most widely held cryptocurrencies on the platform: BTC, ETH, SOL, USDC, USDT, and XRP. It included the spot positions, open margin positions, futures balances and on-chain staked amounts of eligible assets (ETH and SOL). In total, this most recent attestation – which became available on Kraken on November 1, 2024 – covered a value of over $21.5 billion of client assets.
We pioneered the Proof of Reserves process in 2014 and we have committed to undertaking it regularly since January 2022.
Why does this matter? Proof of Reserves includes an independent third party attestation to prove we back client account holdings with in-kind, fully reserved assets. Clients who held balances as of the snapshot date for the supported assets can personally verify their balances are backed with on-chain assets by logging in to their Kraken Pro account.
Our Proof of Reserves includes the following: The total sum of all client liabilities (or balances) A means for clients to cryptographically verify that their account details and individual balances were included in the total sum Attestation from a third party who has verified Kraken has full control over on-chain assets in excess of these liabilities As with our previous Proof of Reserves, we used a Merkle Tree to represent individual account balances identifiable by an encrypted, unique hash (a string of characters). We then successively hash these records until a single Merkle root hash represents the sum total of client balances covered. This means account balances can be easily verified as included in the Proof of Reserves without having to expose the underlying, unencrypted data set.
As with our previous Proof of Reserves, clients can now download the full path within the Merkle Tree, from their account to the root. They can review its construction, gain a better understanding of how Kraken’s Proof of Reserves process works and personally verify the value and validity of the root hash included in the report.
We have continued to engage The Network Firm, a registered CPA firm specializing in accounting and attestation services for crypto businesses, to attest to the fact that we had full control over the wallets holding client balances.
How do I find out more? We encourage you to sign in to Kraken and self-verify that your balances were included in this review. Please bear in mind that this Proof of Reserves only covers assets that were on the platform on September 30, 2024. Any assets held on the platform before or since that date are not included in this report. For a detailed runthrough, please check out The Network Firm’s full report accessible via the verification portal. For a more comprehensive introduction to our Proof of Reserves process, check out our What is Proof of Reserves? A Beginner’s Guide blog post. If you have any further questions, please reach out to Kraken support.