Battle video games: how we constructed Kraken to deal with 10x the load

TL;DR

• Throughout the worst moments of the most important quantity spike our platform had ever seen (in July 2025), about 11% of requests to our platform failed. That was unacceptable. We now run at an error fee of 0.111%, whereas carrying greater than ten instances the load.
• We set a normal for load testing: the platform has to outlive a minimum of twice the heaviest load we’ve got ever dealt with in manufacturing, on demand, each time we take a look at for it.
• Kraken sustains greater than 230,000 profitable requests per second in manufacturing, throughout 5 separate full-scale assessments with zero incidents.
• On February 5, 2026, one of many sharpest selloffs of previous twelve months, each main service held with no incidents.

Peak demand is the one actual take a look at

No buying and selling platform is judged on a median Tuesday. It’s judged on the day Bitcoin units a document, or the day a token sale opens and everybody arrives in the identical minute. These are the moments that inform you what a platform can really carry.

The standard and stability of our platform is the product.

In mid-July 2025, Bitcoin broke by way of $120,000 for the primary time, a part of a rally that carried it above $123,000 inside days. On Kraken, roughly 135,500 shoppers hit errors throughout that window, about 40,000 of them whereas funding an account. On the worst moments, round 11% of requests failed outright. 

Three months later, the primary token providing on Kraken Launch noticed someplace between 60% and 80% of lively classes drop for 2 and a half hours. Even after issues stabilized we have been nonetheless dropping a couple of third of requests throughout visitors spikes.

Over the previous yr we modified how we take a look at for load, so we discover these limits ourselves as a substitute of discovering them mid-rally.

Battle video games

The usual we set: the platform needed to survive a minimum of twice the heaviest load it has ever dealt with in stay buying and selling, on demand, every time we select to check it. Double the document, as the ground. 

To check in opposition to that we constructed full-scale load assessments, recognized internally as battle video games, that throw a manufactured flood of buying and selling exercise at manufacturing techniques. It’s principally a fireplace drill, run on our schedule slightly than the market’s, so we discover the constraints that give means first and repair them earlier than a consumer ever notices. Capability moved rapidly as soon as we might generate the stress on demand.

The markets didn’t look ahead to us to complete. In February, crypto skilled certainly one of its sharpest selloffs of the previous 12 months, with a wave of compelled liquidations sending Bitcoin down onerous over a number of days. 

Buying and selling exercise and platform load climbed collectively, with request volumes hitting new all-time highs. Each main service continued to run with no incidents. We estimated a full outage that day would have price $719,000 an hour. It stayed an estimate.

Shifting the bar constantly larger

Between July 2025 and June 2026, our peak failure fee fell from round 11% to 0.111%, whereas the load the platform carries went up greater than tenfold. 

However we’ve nonetheless bought work to do. 

The 2x customary now stands completely. Every time actual consumer exercise units a brand new document on the platform, that document turns into the load we take a look at in opposition to subsequent, so the bar continues to rise with the market.

When a worth strikes onerous and everybody jumps into the market on the similar second, the platform must be there. 

Coming quickly: If you need the engineering element, what the assessments really do, what broke alongside the best way, and what the crew discovered constructing them, search for our companion publish written for a technical viewers.