Bot Integration with Kraken API

Kraken API Bot Integration

Kraken — one of the oldest and most regulated cryptocurrency exchanges. The API is well-documented, stable, with support for advanced orders. Key feature: non-standard pair names (XXBTZUSD instead of BTC/USDT) and specific nonce requirement for REST requests.

Kraken API Specifics

Authentication: each private request is signed with HMAC-SHA512. Kraken requires nonce — a monotonically increasing number (usually timestamp in milliseconds). Important: nonce must be strictly greater than the previous one, otherwise EAPI:Invalid nonce.

import ccxt

exchange = ccxt.kraken({
    'apiKey': API_KEY,
    'secret': API_SECRET,
})

# CCXT handles nonce and signature automatically
ticker = exchange.fetch_ticker('BTC/USD')
print(f"Last price: {ticker['last']}")

# Place limit order
order = exchange.create_order(
    symbol='BTC/USD',
    type='limit',
    side='buy',
    amount=0.001,
    price=60000,
    params={'oflags': 'post'}  # post-only flag
)

WebSocket API v2

Kraken has WebSocket API v2 for real-time data:

import websockets
import json

async def subscribe_kraken():
    async with websockets.connect('wss://ws.kraken.com/v2') as ws:
        await ws.send(json.dumps({
            "method": "subscribe",
            "params": {
                "channel": "ticker",
                "symbol": ["BTC/USD", "ETH/USD"]
            }
        }))
        async for message in ws:
            data = json.loads(message)
            if data.get('channel') == 'ticker':
                process_ticker(data['data'])

Rate Limits

Kraken uses tier-based rate limiting. Basic tier: 15 units, recovery 0.33/sec. Different calls cost different units (order placement = 1, cancel = 0). When exceeded — EAPI:Rate limit exceeded.

Mitigation: CCXT built-in rate limiter, plus separate logic for critical operations.

Kraken API integration for trading bot: 1–2 weeks including testing on sandbox and handling exchange-specific errors.