Kraken futures limit orders can still execute after a successful cancellation if the cancel request arrives during the Maker Protection hold window. Kraken completed Phase 2 of its Maker Protection expansion on Oct. 8, bringing the order-handling rule to 61 additional perpetual contracts.
Maker Protection holds orders that could take liquidity before they reach the matching engine, giving traders with resting orders time to react. A limit order without a post-only instruction is held on a covered market even if it would otherwise have rested on the book.
Order Behavior and Cancellations
A cancellation submitted inside the hold window changes how the order behaves. Kraken converts the held placement to immediate-or-cancel (IOC), meaning it can trade when released but cannot leave an unfilled remainder on the book. The original hold expiry time remains unchanged.
For example, if a trader submits a non-post-only limit order and cancels it before the hold expires, the cancel request bypasses the delay and converts the placement to IOC. At the original release time, the order can still fill, and any unfilled amount is discarded.
Kraken reports these instructions separately. The cancel receives a success response with an order status of “cancelled,” while the order later reports its own fills or failure to execute. For a converted limit that cannot trade, the REST v3 response is iocWouldNotExecute.
Market Specifics and Trading Bots
The distinction is contract-specific, and traders cannot infer coverage from the coin name alone. Kraken states that its ten most liquid linear perpetual markets are excluded and spot trading is unaffected. Standalone post-only placements bypass the hold entirely. Additionally, cancel requests bypass the delay, though a held limit placement still waits for its original release time.
Other held order types feature different cancel responses. A cancellation targeting a held immediate-or-cancel, fill-or-kill, or market placement returns an ORDER_NOT_FOUND error, while the original request still reaches matching when released.
Automated traders operating in Kraken futures must reconcile both the order's execution response and the cancellation acknowledgment, as a successful held-limit cancel can still coexist with a later fill.
