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Two-factor authentication on Kraken

A token Kraken hands out itself, an authenticator app, and the question neither of them answers — what happens to your codes when the phone holding them stops existing.

What Kraken supports

These are the second factors Kraken offers on kraken.com. Which ones you see can depend on your plan and your country; what each of the seven actually costs you is set out once.

MethodWhat it is
Authenticator app (TOTP)SupportedComputed on your own device; nothing is sent to produce it.
Hardware security keySupportedA physical key you tap; the one option phishing does not beat.
The service’s own deviceSupportedA token the service issues, and usually only it can replace.
EmailSupportedSent to your mailbox, which then sets the ceiling.
SMS text messageNot offeredTexted to your number, so your carrier is part of the lock.

Kraken's own caveat, as recorded in the directory: Email 2FA is mandatory for all users but only requested for unknown devices

Data sourced from 2FA Directory by 2factorauth. Snapshot 2026-09-24.

What that particular mix means

Kraken offers no SMS or voice option at all. That is worth noticing rather than skipping past: it removes the SIM-swap route onto the account entirely, and it means an authenticator app is the baseline here, not an upgrade.

A hardware security key is also accepted. It is stronger than any code, because a code can be typed into a convincing fake page and a key cannot. The usual arrangement is a key as the primary factor and an authenticator app as the backup that fits in a pocket.

There is an email fallback, which quietly makes this account as protected as the mailbox behind it. If that mailbox has weaker two-factor than this account does, the weaker one is the real setting.

Where this page's facts come from

Of the fifty services on this site, three issue a hardware token of their own, and Kraken is one of them. No other service here accepts exactly this combination of factors. Among the four services filed under cryptocurrencies, three accept a hardware security key — Kraken among them.

The directory files Kraken under cryptocurrencies, records four of the seven second factors it tracks, and points at instructions published at support.kraken.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000426923.

Switching on an authenticator app

Kraken's own instructions: Kraken — two-factor authentication — linked, never copied, because a stale menu path here locks people out.

If the phone holding your Kraken codes is gone

Kraken publishes no dedicated page for losing your second factor, which in practice means the route back is ordinary account recovery: proving who you are to support, on their timetable.

Background: how the codes work · what still works when the phone is gone.

Other services in the same place

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Where Stillcode fits

An iPhone, iPad and Mac authenticator for these codes that makes no network calls at all. What is free and what Pro adds. Get it on the App Store