Non-EU vendorFintech & NeobanksHeadquarters: US

Kraken: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

Kraken is a cryptocurrency exchange and trading platform operated by Payward, Inc. Retail and institutional clients buy, sell and hold crypto-assets there and use related services such as portfolio management and OTC trading. The service is delivered as a website and app and is hosted entirely by Kraken itself; there is no self-hosted variant.

Payward, Inc. is a US company headquartered in Cheyenne, Wyoming. For clients in the European Economic Area, Kraken contracts through European entities: Payward Europe Solutions Limited in Ireland is authorised by the Central Bank of Ireland as a crypto-asset service provider under MiCA, Payward Ireland Limited is an authorised electronic money institution, and Payward Europe Digital Solutions (CY) Limited in Cyprus provides investment services. In its privacy hub Kraken states that it complies with the GDPR and says data may be processed in countries including the United States, the United Kingdom and Ireland, using standard contractual clauses for transfers. For a European organisation this means a European regulated entity for the service, but a US parent company.

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Sovereignty score

27 / 1000 = high exposure
100 = sovereign

Jurisdiction SOV-210
Headquartered in the US: CLOUD Act and FISA 702
Data residency SOV-350
Hosting inside and outside Europe (US, EU)
Cryptographic key sovereignty SOV-320
Key management with a non-European vendor
Freedom from lock-in SOV-640
Closed source: switching requires data migration
Source & runtime sovereignty SOV-4 · SOV-615
Closed source, runtime with the vendor

SOV codes: the matching objective in the European Commission's Cloud Sovereignty Framework. Official source

How the score is calculated

Facts and evidence

Last checked October 13, 2026

Headquarters	US (US)Verified by hand
EU adequacy decision	Only for companies individually certified under the EU-US Data Privacy FrameworkVerified by hand
Sovereignty model	Vendor-hosted (non-EU)Verified by hand
Data hosting	US, EUVerified by hand
Open-source	NoVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant	YesVendor-stated
Category	Fintech & Neobanks
Type	Product
Website	kraken.com ↗

How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to Kraken

The European alternatives to Kraken come from our knowledge base of over 8,000 vendors. We only list vendors headquartered in the EU or the EEA; fully European-owned vendors rank before vendors with a foreign owner. For each alternative you see the country, the open-source status and a short description.

Score per alternative: 0 = high exposure, 100 = sovereign

144 European Fintech & Neobanks vendors are in the catalogue. View the whole category · Submit an alternative · View category on the map

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Why digital sovereignty matters with Kraken

Kraken is headquartered in the United States. US vendors fall under the CLOUD Act and FISA 702: US authorities can compel access to data, even when that data sits in a European data centre. That is the core of the jurisdictional exposure in our model.

Kraken hosts data in US, EU. Exactly what stays within the EU — and what does not — is defined by the vendor's data processing agreement and sub-processor list, not by a setting you control yourself; check those documents for the precise scope, including backups, logs and support access.

Kraken is closed source and hosted by the vendor. The encryption keys and the runtime sit with the vendor and switching requires data migration. Ask about bring-your-own-key, export options and open standards.

What this means for your organisation depends on your whole stack and context. The free assessment weighs Kraken together with your other vendors and gives a total score, a heatmap and the main risk drivers.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best European alternative to Kraken?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to Kraken include 1822direkt, ActivoBank and Air Bank. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to Kraken?

Our list of EU alternatives to Kraken is mostly commercial options. Browse the category on the map for open-source choices.

Is Kraken GDPR-compliant and where is the data hosted?

Kraken is headquartered in US and hosts data in US, EU. The vendor states it is GDPR-compliant, but the data falls under non-EU jurisdiction. For full EU data residency the EU alternatives on this page usually offer more certainty.

Details and sources

Verified by handHeadquarters, owner, hosting locations and licence have been checked by us against public sources. Free of charge and for every vendor, not a paid label. Nothing in this knowledge base is taken over automatically. Last checked on October 13, 2026.

Sources

Public sources used in the latest check of this record.

Compliance evidence

The links below point to the vendor's own public documents. We only record what we found: a missing link means "not found publicly", not "not compliant".

No public compliance evidence has been recorded for this vendor yet. Do you know its DPA or subprocessor list? Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Digital sovereignty in Fintech & Neobanks

Fintech & Neobanks: Digital banks, neobanks, money transfers and fintech services. In this category the choice of vendor determines who has legal access to your data, where that data lives and how easily you can switch later.

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