Gnosis, Pound Sterling Among Pairs Disappearing from Kraken Today

Kraken is delisting 11 “illiquid” currency pairs today in an attempt to bulletproof its technical infrastructure for more popular trade options.
Kraken is delisting 11 “illiquid” currency pairs today in an attempt to bulletproof its technical infrastructure for more popular trade options.

Cryptocurrency exchange Kraken has announced it is delisting currency pairs and freezing certain trade types to reduce “strain” on its infrastructure.

In a move which to an extent mimics Poloniex’s previous currency removals, Kraken will delist 11 “illiquid” trading pairs effective Aug. 22.

These include altcoins, tokens such as Gnosis and notably Bitcoin and Ethereum British pound sterling pairs.

“In order to help mitigate the strain on our platform caused by recent exponential growth, we are delisting some of our illiquid trading pairs and temporarily suspending all advanced order types,” a blog post confirms.

Major exchanges have all reported huge influxes of new customers over the course of 2017, which has led to staff shortages and service outages among other technical problems.

Poloniex removed 17 altcoins from its books in May in a move which at the time caught developer teams and users alike by surprise.

Kraken will remove the following pairs, adding while it has “no plans” to re-add them, the option “is a possibility” once suitable capacity is available:

  • XBT/GBP
  • ETH/GBP
  • XRP/CAD
  • XRP/JPY
  • EOS/EUR
  • EOS/USD
  • XLM/EUR
  • XLM/USD
  • GNO/EUR
  • GNO/USD
  • REP/USD

As part of the reshuffle, certain types of advanced orders will temporarily be unavailable, with only basic market and limit orders unaffected.

No further reports of currency pair changes have surfaced from other exchanges, with resources offering multiple tokens such as HitBTC continuing offering GNO and EOS pairs.