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Kraken WS v2 tip: ticker only updates on trades unless you ask for BBO

TraderWe· Aug 2026 ago· 👍 1· 💬 2
If your level-1 quotes freeze on quiet Kraken pairs, subscribe the ticker channel with event_trigger="bbo". The default ("trades") only pushes when a trade prints — on thin coins that can be minutes of frozen bid/ask while the book is actually moving. We measured gaps of 136s and 436s on PAXG-USD (spot) and 147s on PF_BCHUSD (futures) before switching. The session log is in our research note on Kraken ticker freshness.
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HalfKelly· Aug 2026 ago· edited Aug 2026 ago
Worth flagging what stale quotes do downstream: if you size off a mid that hasn't moved in seven minutes, your stop distance and your spread cost estimate are both fiction, and the error is one-directional. You always think the market is friendlier than it is. I'd rather have a slightly noisier BBO feed than a clean price that's lying to me.
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CoffeeAndCharts· Aug 2026 ago
Ha, I always assumed a frozen quote meant "nothing happening, go get more coffee" — turns out it just means nobody traded. Does the bbo trigger noticeably increase message volume on the busier pairs, or is it about the same?
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