Kraken Prop announced today, August 18, 2026, through a blog post that the program is making trading more capital-efficient and is introducing new leverages across various instruments.
Kraken Prop with the release of this blog raised the leverage limit for different assets. As explained in the blog post, Bitcoin and the Nasdaq 100 index will increase their leverage limit from 5x to 10x and have their notional limits reset to $1 million each. In addition, the leverage for the S&P 500 index has increased to 10x with notional limits doubled to $2 million.
Along with these three instruments, Solana’s (SOL) leverage has also been increased. According to the blog, now the program allows up to 5x leverage with a $500K cap, and HYPE has reached 3x with a $200K cap. An entire list of maximum leverage per market is available on Kraken’s prop trading page, and the firm notes these limits are under ongoing review and can change.
Why Traders Will Feel This in Their Wallets
While the numbers appear to be quite flashy, the true benefit lies in the buying power. In the majority of accounts that are below the mentioned notional cap, an increase in leverage would mean a need for lower margin for the same amount of the position. An account would require $100,000 in margin, while earlier $200,000 was needed for the same $1 million Bitcoin position.
However, the S&P 500 index upgrade goes beyond that. Due to the increase in the cap in accordance with increased leverage, the buying power essentially doubles at all account sizes, and not only small accounts.
What Stays Exactly the Same
This is a capital-efficient tweak and not a rulebook rewrite. Existing positions keep the leverage they were opened with until closed. Open evaluation continues under their original terms, and evaluation pricing is unchanged.
Drawdown rules, profit splits (which is still 80-90%), and payout timelines (typically within 24 hours) remain as before. There are still no consistent rules of time limits. If somebody is mid-eval or already funded, then nothing needs to be changed. The extra leverage is only available when the user wants it.
How Kraken Prop Works
Kraken Prop is a simulated trading program. The users provide trade signals only, and do not hold any real positions. Any stated limits are simulated. Payouts, however, are real and based on the user’s simulated performance. This structure allows traders to practice with larger notional sizes while the firm manages actual risk behind the scenes.
The program offers evaluation plans (such as starter, intermediate, advanced) with wallet sizes ranging from $5,000 to $200,000. Successful traders can access funded accounts and keep a large share of profits, typically 80-90% depending on the plan.
Kraken Prop’s Move Into Equity Indices
However, recently Kraken Prop has started venturing out of crypto space. In the last month, Kraken Prop offered S&P 500 Perpetuals, giving traders an opportunity to trade the equity index with leverage of up to 5x and using simulated wallets with $200,000 worth of assets at any hour. Soon after, Nasdaq 100 was added with similar specifications.
Now that leverage has been increased for both indices and BTC, it can be considered as a multi-asset playground for signal traders.
Separately, Kraken Pro margin trading for BTC/USD has seen its own leverage cap raised to 20x for eligible users in selected markets, even though this change applies to spot margin on Kraken Pro and not on Kraken Prop’s simulated environment.
What to Watch Next
According to Kraken, leverage limits are under ongoing review, so traders should watch for updates from official pages. As more markets get higher caps, the practical effect will be sharper capital efficiency: smaller margins for the same simulated exposure, and more room to scale positions without having to wait for the account to grow.
