Kraken Rate Limits

kraken-rate-limits

Use this skill for:

• understanding Kraken's rate limit systems (Spot REST, trading engine, Futures)
• adapting agent behavior when rate limit errors occur
• choosing optimal request patterns (WebSocket vs REST, batch vs individual)

How Rate Limiting Works

The CLI does not pre-throttle or retry rate-limited requests. The Kraken API server enforces rate limits. When a limit is hit, the CLI returns the error immediately with structured fields:

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{
  "error": "rate_limit",
  "message": "Spot REST API rate limit exceeded ...",
  "suggestion": "Wait 5-15 seconds before retrying. ...",
  "retryable": true,
  "docs_url": "https://docs.kraken.com/api/docs/guides/spot-rest-ratelimits/"
}

Read the suggestion field to understand what limit was hit and how to adapt.

Kraken's Rate Limit Systems

1. Spot REST Counter

Counter-decay model. Each call adds to a counter; the counter decays over time.

Most calls cost 1 point. Ledgers, trade history, and query-ledgers cost 2. AddOrder and CancelOrder are excluded from this counter (they use the trading engine limiter instead).

Docs: https://docs.kraken.com/api/docs/guides/spot-rest-ratelimits/

2. Spot Trading Engine (per-pair)

Separate per-pair counter with penalties for short-lived orders:

Cancel within 5 seconds costs +8, amend within 5 seconds costs +3. Let orders rest longer to reduce cost.

Docs: https://docs.kraken.com/api/docs/guides/spot-ratelimits

3. Futures Cost Budget

Cost-based system with two separate pools:

• /derivatives endpoints: budget of 500 per 10 seconds. sendorder costs 10, editorder costs 10, cancelorder costs 10, batchorder costs 9 + batch size, cancelallorders costs 25, accounts costs 2.
• /history endpoints: pool of 100 tokens, refills at 100 per 10 minutes.

Docs: https://docs.kraken.com/api/docs/guides/futures-rate-limits/

Agent Strategies

Prefer WebSocket over REST polling

Streaming does not consume REST rate limit points. For real-time data, always prefer:

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kraken ws ticker BTC/USD -o json 2>/dev/null

Use batch orders

Batch orders cost less per-order on both Spot and Futures. Up to 15 orders per batch on Spot.

Read the suggestion field

When a rate limit error is returned, the suggestion field contains the specific limit that was hit and concrete advice. Parse it and adapt:

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RESULT=$(kraken balance -o json 2>/dev/null)
if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
  CATEGORY=$(echo "$RESULT" | jq -r '.error // "unknown"')
  if [ "$CATEGORY" = "rate_limit" ]; then
    SUGGESTION=$(echo "$RESULT" | jq -r '.suggestion // "Wait and retry"')
    DOCS=$(echo "$RESULT" | jq -r '.docs_url // ""')
    echo "Rate limited. $SUGGESTION"
    echo "Read more: $DOCS"
  fi
fi

Multi-command budget planning

Before executing a sequence, estimate total cost:

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# This sequence costs ~5 points on the Spot REST counter:
kraken ticker BTCUSD -o json 2>/dev/null       # 1 point
kraken balance -o json 2>/dev/null             # 1 point
kraken open-orders -o json 2>/dev/null         # 1 point
kraken trades-history -o json 2>/dev/null      # 2 points (heavy call)

Leave headroom for retries and unexpected calls.

If you hit a mismatch between what you are trying to do and the CLI's interface or responses — including a mismatch between this skill and the installed CLI version's contract — feel free to submit feedback with kraken feedback.