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Real-time market data and streaming order entry over a persistent connection. v2 is recommended for all new integrations; v1 is maintained for existing clients. For connection details, version differences, ping/pong, and rate-limit behaviour, see the Spot WebSocket overview.

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Endpoints

EnvironmentPublicPrivate (auth)
v2 — Primarywss://ws.kraken.com/v2wss://ws-auth.kraken.com/v2
v2 — Betawss://beta-ws.kraken.com/v2wss://beta-ws-auth.kraken.com/v2
v1 — Primarywss://ws.kraken.comwss://ws-auth.kraken.com
v1 — Betawss://beta-ws.kraken.comwss://beta-ws-auth.kraken.com
Beta endpoints share the production trading engine but receive new features ahead of primary — used for client validation when announced.

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Authentication

Private channels require a WebSocket token, retrieved via the Spot REST endpoint GetWebSocketsToken. Tokens are short-lived; obtain a fresh token on each connection. See WebSocket authentication for the full flow.

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v2 vs v1

Featurev1v2
Message formatArrayNormalised JSON object
Symbol formatXBT/USDBTC/USD
TimestampEpoch sec, μsRFC 3339 (2026-04-28T...)
L3 order-by-order book—✅
Book checksumUpdates onlySnapshot + updates
Trade ID—Sequential int
New featuresFrozenActive

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Quick start

book (L2)

Order book snapshots + incremental updates with CRC32 checksums.

executions

Private order acks, fills, and amends — the canonical order-state stream.

add_order

Place an order over the open WebSocket connection.

cancel_after

Dead-man’s switch — cancel all orders if the client stops checking in.
The complete v2 catalog (book, level3, ticker, trade, ohlc, instrument, executions, balances, add_order, amend_order, cancel_order, batch_add, batch_cancel, cancel_all, cancel_after, ping, heartbeat, status) and the v1 catalog (book, ticker, trade, spread, ohlc, ownTrades, openOrders, addOrder, cancelOrder, cancelAll, systemStatus, heartbeat, ping) are available under the Spot WebSocket v2 and Spot WebSocket v1 dropdowns in the left navigation.

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Connection management

Send a ping at least every 60 seconds. On reconnect, resubscribe to each channel and reconcile state — the reconnection guide walks through resubscription, sequence handling, and book recovery.

WebSocket overview

Connection details, v1 vs v2, beta endpoints.

WebSocket authentication

Token retrieval and signed challenge flow.

Book checksum (v2)

Validate book consistency after every update.

L3 checksum (v2)

L3 order-by-order checksum logic.

Reconnection

Disconnect handling and resubscribe.

Choose your protocol

WebSocket vs FIX vs REST trade-offs.