Kraken is the exchange to use in Moonitor if you think about your portfolio in a currency other than dollars. It lists more fiat pairs than any other exchange the app supports, which means your totals can be priced in real euros or pounds rather than converted from a dollar figure.
As with every exchange in Moonitor, this does not involve connecting your Kraken account. There is no API key and no login. The app reads Kraken's public price feed and you enter what you hold. The reasoning is in crypto portfolio tracker without API keys.
Why Kraken is the useful one for fiat
Most exchanges quote almost everything against USDT, a dollar stablecoin. That is fine if you think in dollars. If you do not, every number you look at has an invisible conversion baked into it.
Kraken lists direct pairs against euro, pound sterling, Canadian dollar, Swiss franc, Japanese yen and Australian dollar. Tracking BTC/EUR on Kraken gives you the actual euro price that actual euro buyers are paying, not a dollar price passed through a rate.
If you are a European or UK holder, this is the single best reason to pick Kraken as your price source in Moonitor, even for coins you bought somewhere else.
Kraken calls Bitcoin XBT
A quirk that confuses people the first time. Kraken has historically used XBT as the ticker for Bitcoin rather than BTC, following an old ISO currency convention for non national assets. Its internal pair codes still look like XXBTZEUR.
You do not need to do anything about this. Moonitor normalises the naming, so you search for BTC/EUR and get the right market. It is worth knowing only so the XBT you may see on Kraken's own site does not read as a different asset.
Kraken and Kraken Pro
These are two interfaces onto the same exchange and the same order books, not two venues. Kraken Pro is the advanced trading view. Prices are identical, so it makes no difference which you trade through. Moonitor points at the same feed either way.
Setting it up
- Choose Kraken as the exchange.
- Search for your pair. Pick the quote currency you actually think in:
BTC/EURif you count in euros,BTC/USDif you count in dollars. - Add your holdings with the amount and the price you paid.
Record each purchase separately rather than averaging by hand. Moonitor computes the weighted average, described in tracking crypto profit and loss.
Choosing the quote currency deliberately
This decision matters more on Kraken than anywhere else, because you have a real choice.
Pick the currency you would spend the money in. If you are in Germany, a portfolio priced in euros tells you something true about your position. The same portfolio priced in dollars mixes your crypto performance with the EUR/USD exchange rate, and when the dollar moves your total moves for reasons that have nothing to do with crypto.
If you want the harder benchmark, price everything in Bitcoin instead. See track your portfolio in Bitcoin.
Things to watch
- Fiat pairs are thinner than USDT pairs.
BTC/EURon Kraken is liquid. A small cap altcoin against euro may not be, and a thin pair produces a jumpy price. If a pair looks erratic, track it against USD or USDT instead. - Not every coin has a fiat pair. Kraken lists fewer assets than Binance or KuCoin. If a coin is missing, price it on an exchange that lists it and see supported exchanges.
- Kraken is in the full version. The free version covers Binance and Binance US only.
