TL;DR
- Unified Wallet is now available to EEA clients on Kraken Pro
- It combines your spot, margin, and futures balances into one shared source of collateral, so you can trade futures without moving funds between wallets
- Eligible holdings, including gold (XAU), count toward your futures margin automatically, with no idle collateral
- Enabling it is a self-serve switch in your account settings, and you can do it anytime
If you already hold spot, margin, or Earn balances with us but haven’t traded futures yet, the biggest hurdle is often practical rather than strategic. Your capital sits in one wallet, your futures trades need collateral in another, and every idea starts with moving funds around. Unified Wallet takes that step out.
We’re bringing it to EEA clients on Kraken Pro, so the balances you already hold can back your futures positions directly.
What is Unified Wallet?
Enabling Unified Wallet brings your spot, margin, Earn, and futures balances together into one smart, flexible wallet. Instead of keeping capital in separate buckets, your eligible assets work as shared collateral across your positions, with margin calculated at the account level. The result is more buying power, fewer transfers, and less idle capital on every trade.
More than 40 cryptocurrencies, along with USD, EUR, and XAU, can serve as collateral. Each asset counts toward your margin at a collateral value ratio that reflects its liquidity, and those ratios can change with market conditions.
What changes when you enable it
- No manual transfers. Your eligible balances are already available as margin, so you can open a futures position without funding a separate futures wallet first
- Shared collateral. Assets across your spot, margin, earn, and futures balances back your positions, so capital is never stuck in a wallet your trade can’t use
- Unrealized P&L that works for you. Unrealized profit and loss on your margin and futures positions can count as margin for other trades, which boosts your capital efficiency
- Two margin modes. Cross margin is the default, and isolated margin remains available for linear Multi-M futures contracts when you want to limit what a single position can use
See your commodities work harder
Say you hold gold (XAU) in your Unified Wallet. It automatically counts toward your futures margin, with no transfers and no idle collateral. From there, you can trade BTC or ETH futures using the gold you already hold.
The same logic applies across your account. The assets you hold for spot, margin, or earn can now back your futures positions without any extra funding.
Is Unified Wallet right for you?
Unified Wallet is built for capital efficiency, and that comes with a trade-off worth understanding. With separate wallets, a loss on a futures position can’t touch your spot holdings. With Unified Wallet in cross margin mode, a losing position can draw on your entire eligible balance.
Unified Wallet with cross margin may be better if you:
- Actively trade across spot, margin, and futures
- Understand margin, maintenance margin, and liquidation
- Want to maximize capital efficiency
- Are comfortable with your full eligible balance serving as collateral for your positions
Separate wallets or isolated margin may be better if you:
- Are new to leveraged trading
- Hold long-term assets you don’t want exposed to futures losses
- Want to know exactly how much is exposed in each product
- Want to cap the maximum loss on each trade
You’re always in control. You can switch back to separate wallets whenever you like, as long as you have no open derivatives positions or active orders.
How to enable Unified Wallet
You don’t need to close any open positions to switch. Once you enable Unified Wallet, your eligible balances are pooled immediately. If you haven’t activated futures trading on Kraken Pro yet, you can do that in your account settings first.
On Kraken Pro web:
- Click your profile icon in the top right, then click Settings
- Under Trading platform, click Edit, then select Unified Wallet
On the Kraken Pro app:
- Tap More at the bottom right
- Tap your name at the top of the page
- Tap Preferences
- Tap the Wallet setting dropdown at the top of the page (it will show Separate if you haven’t switched yet)
- Tap Unified Wallet, then tap Confirm
For a full breakdown of margin modes, collateral values, and liquidation, read our Introduction to Unified Wallet support article.
Put your collateral to work
Unified Wallet is now available to EEA clients. One wallet, every asset, working together.
Not investment advice. Crypto trading involves risk of loss. Crypto spot services are provided by Payward Europe Solutions Limited, trading as Kraken, regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. Staking/Earn is not a regulated financial product and may not benefit from regulatory protections.
Trading derivatives involves significant risks and is not appropriate for all investors. You could lose more than your initial investment. See our Risk Disclosure on eu.kraken.com.
Derivatives products are provided by Payward Europe Digital Solutions (CY) Limited, regulated by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC), licence no 342/17.
Digital assets are held in custody by Payward Europe Solutions Limited (PESL), your MiCA custodian, while financial instruments are provided by PEDSL-CY, your MiFID broker. Each entity acts solely within its own regulatory permissions, and no joint service or cross-entity responsibility is implied.
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