Two checks — cost and trust

Kraken vs Bybit.

Two different questions decide this matchup: whether you get your money out, and what a trade really costs. Below, each venue’s sourced Reliability Score sits beside the measured all-in cost of the same €1,000 Bitcoin buy — trading fee plus the hidden spread from the live orderbook, withdrawal included where the venue publishes one — measured 2026-07-29 07:48 UTC.

On reliability, Kraken scores 88, Bybit 84 (of 100, sourced & dated). Kraken currently carries the higher score — cheapest and safest need not be the same venue.

At this measurement, the same €1,000 BTC buy cost €4.00 all-in on Kraken vs €1.00 on Bybit. Moments and sizes change the answer — the live comparison recomputes for your exact trade.

Kraken

Published fee (maker / taker): 0.25% / 0.40%
Reliability Score: 88 / 100
Measured cost · €1,000 BTC buy: €4.00
You get: 0.01762832 BTC
Of which hidden spread: €0.00
BTC withdrawal: not published — excluded

Open Kraken ↗neutral link

Bybit

Published fee (maker / taker): 0.10% / 0.10%
Reliability Score: 84 / 100
Measured cost · €1,000 BTC buy: €1.00
You get: 0.01767591 BTC
Of which hidden spread: €0.00
BTC withdrawal: not published — excluded

Open Bybit ↗affiliate link

Which is safer?

Both venues are MiCAR-licensed a month apart in 2025 — Bybit via Austria’s FMA (decision 2025-05-28, European HQ in Vienna), Kraken via the Central Bank of Ireland (announced 2025-06-25, plus MiFID and e-money licences). Their proof-of-reserves programs are the strongest two in our comparison, with different cadences: Bybit monthly, Merkle-tree, audited by Hacken with on-chain wallets (December 2025: BTC 105%, ETH 101%, USDT 102%); Kraken quarterly, auditor-assisted, with per-client self-verification across spot, margin, futures and staked assets (~$21.5B verified in March 2025).

The incident records are very different in scale. Bybit absorbed the largest crypto theft on record on 2025-02-21 — approximately $1.4–1.5B in ETH via compromised third-party wallet infrastructure, FBI-attributed to Lazarus — and the documented operational response is why its score did not collapse: withdrawals stayed open, 99.994% of over 350,000 requests were processed within ~10 hours, the gap was closed within ~72 hours, and 1:1 backing was restored and subsequently audited, with no user losses reported. Kraken’s heaviest recent entries are a June 2024 zero-day balance-inflation bug (~$3M withdrawn by security researchers, patched in 47 minutes, funds returned) and an AUD 8M Australian court order over a margin product (December 2024). Kraken, founded 2011, has no platform-wide withdrawal halt documented in 36 months of public status history.

India’s FIU penalty against Bybit (~$1.06M, paid, with registration completed in February 2025) rounds out its regulatory record; Kraken’s US chapter closed with its SEC suit dismissed with prejudice in March 2025, after a $30M staking settlement in 2023. The live scores above weigh every entry with 24-month decay — the sourced basis, incident by incident, is one click away on each venue page.

Full sourced basis, incident by incident: Kraken · Bybit.

Which is cheaper?

The live cards above carry the published base-tier fees and the measured all-in cost of the same €1,000 BTC buy — the spread component is measured fresh against each orderbook. Both venues publish a fixed BTC withdrawal fee (shown live above from their published schedules), so the withdrawal leg is comparable on this page.

One stable Kraken caveat: its Instant Buy flow carries a curated typical markup of roughly 1.5% spread plus 0.9% processing (150–240 bps, verified 2026-06-10) that the spot orderbook does not. Bybit has no curated convert row — not assessed, which is a coverage statement, not a zero. Our table prices spot on both venues.

Questions, answered

Is Kraken or Bybit cheaper for buying Bitcoin?

At the most recent measurement (measured 2026-07-29 07:48 UTC), a €1,000 Bitcoin buy cost €1.00 all-in on Bybit versus €4.00 on the other venue (trading fee plus the spread measured on the live orderbook). Market conditions and order size change the answer — the live comparison at skontro.com/true-cost recomputes it for any trade.

Is Kraken or Bybit safer?

We don't issue safety verdicts. On Skontro's sourced Reliability Score, Kraken currently scores 88/100 and Bybit 84/100 — Kraken scores higher. The score is built from documented withdrawal reliability, proof of reserves, regulatory standing, security history, support and maturity; every negative data point is dated and sourced on the venue pages.

What trading fees do Kraken and Bybit charge?

Published base-tier fees: Kraken 0.25% maker / 0.40% taker; Bybit 0.10% maker / 0.10% taker. The published fee is only part of the real cost — execution spread comes on top and is measured live on this page.

Has Kraken or Bybit ever halted withdrawals?

Kraken has no platform-wide withdrawal halt documented in 36 months of public status history (asset-level pauses only). Bybit kept withdrawals open even during the February 2025 hack — the largest crypto theft on record — processing 99.994% of over 350,000 requests within ~10 hours. Both records are dated and sourced on the Skontro venue pages.

Method, in one paragraph

We walk each venue’s live public orderbook for the exact order size, add the published base-tier fee and the venue’s published withdrawal fee, and rank by what you actually receive. Venues without fresh data are omitted, never faked. The Reliability Score is sourced and dated, and never part of the cost ranking — and ranking is never influenced by affiliate commissions. Cost methodology · Score methodology.

More comparisons

Some venue links are affiliate links. Skontro earns a commission from the linked platform at no extra cost to you. Ranking is never influenced by affiliate payout. Ranking is always by the measured result of the trade — what you actually receive — never by affiliate relationship.