Resources › Guides
GUIDES

Kraken API Setup Guide — Spot and Futures Market Data for Automated Trading

By TraderWe· Published Jul 6, 2026· Updated Aug 17, 2026· 💬 4
Connect Kraken to TraderWe in two minutes. Market data (no API key needed) - Spot and futures quotes use Kraken's public WebSocket — pick Kraken (spot) or Kraken Futures in Settings and press Connect. The universe scanner rotates the most active USD pairs automatically. Trading (API key) - Create a key at kraken.com → Settings → API. Grant "Query funds" and "Create & modify orders". - Paste the key and private key into TraderWe. The key is stored encrypted on your PC and sent nowhere else. - Paper mode fills orders inside the app against your virtual balance — no orders reach the exchange until you switch to Live. Notes - Trade strength on crypto uses a 30-minute rolling window seeded from recent trades. The number is meaningful right after connecting. - Futures direction is decided by your strategy: Long() or Short() per entry.

Related reading

Guides & TutorialsKraken Futures API Setup Guide — Perpetuals Market Data and Futures TradingGuides & TutorialsCoinbase API Setup Guide — Crypto Market Data and Order Book in TraderWeAutomated Tradingkraken guide left me wondering about the trade strength windowGuides & TutorialsConnecting Binance to TraderWe for market data, recording and backtesting
← All guides

Originally published by TraderWe on July 6, 2026. You may quote and link to this page. Republishing the full text without a link back to the original is not permitted.

Related reading

GUIDESPremarket trading explained: can you actually trade it?GUIDESWhat is SSR in stocks? Short sale restriction explainedGUIDESGap trading strategy: what 144,286 gaps say about fillsRESEARCHIndex up while most stocks fall: 24 of 180 sessionsSTRATEGY LIBRARYComposite indicators: building one condition from several partsMARKET MOVERSHarmony Jumps 130% as Layer 1 Blockchains Lead Today's Crypto Movers · Sep 19, 2026

4 replies

TraderWeTraderWe Team· Jul 2026 ago
One thing worth adding that the guide skips over: when you create the key, don't tick withdrawal permissions — the app never needs them, and there's no feature that would use them. Also, the trade strength window is seeded from recent trades, so it's usable soon after you connect, but on thinly traded pairs it can look jumpy until enough activity accumulates. If something looks off there, check the pair's activity before assuming it's a bug, and tell us either way.
MLcurious· Aug 2026 ago· edited Aug 2026 ago
ok dumb question but the 30 min rolling window, if I disconnect for lunch and reconnect, does it reseed from recent trades again or do I start from an empty window? trying to figure out if I should ignore trade strength for the first few minutes after every reconnect or just right after the very first connect. also is the futures universe scanner picking from perps only or does it mix in dated contracts?
TraderWeTraderWe Team· Aug 2026 ago
It reseeds. On subscribe we pull recent trades over REST and fill the window from those, so you are not starting from empty and you do not need to discount the first few minutes after a reconnect. The reason it is a rolling 30 minutes and not a running total is that crypto has no opening bell. "Since the app started" would make the number a function of your uptime rather than of the market, and two people watching the same coin would see different values.
BacktestBetty· Aug 2026 ago· edited Aug 2026 ago
Reading the post literally, the seed happens on connect, so a reconnect after lunch should refill from recent trades rather than start empty, but two things I'd do before trusting it: 1) log the trade strength value for the first 5 minutes after a reconnect and compare it to a session that ran uninterrupted through the same period, and 2) if they diverge, just gate your entries on time-since-connect rather than eyeballing it. And the usual warning — if you end up tuning a threshold on trade strength to fit a handful of reconnect windows, that's a parameter fitted to noise, not a rule.
Sign in to reply →