NakedPnL vs Kaiko - Performance Registry vs Market Data Feed
How a registry of verified trader performance compares with Kaiko's institutional crypto market data API. Different products, overlapping institutional audiences.
- Kaiko is an institutional crypto market data and indices vendor: prices, order books, reference rates, and analytics for centralised and decentralised venues.
- NakedPnL is an independent registry of verified trader performance: read-only API connections, daily TWR, SHA-256 hash chain, and OpenTimestamps Bitcoin anchoring.
- The two products serve overlapping institutional audiences but answer different questions: market-level pricing data vs trader-level verified track records.
Verdict in one paragraph
Kaiko sells the inputs to a fund's pricing, marking, and risk pipeline: trade ticks, order books, reference rates, and indices across centralised and decentralised venues. NakedPnL publishes the outputs of an individual trader's behaviour: a daily NAV-derived TWR series with a SHA-256 chain that anyone can re-verify in a browser. They are not substitutes. A fund may consume Kaiko for marking and use NakedPnL for manager diligence; the two coexist rather than compete.
What they do differently
Kaiko's product surface includes historical and current trade data, order books, an aggregated price API, reference rates, and indices delivered via REST, gRPC, WebSocket, and CSV. The audience is institutional - exchanges, asset managers, banks, regulators - and the deliverable is high-frequency market data with documented coverage. Pricing is enterprise and bespoke; Kaiko does not publish a public price list.
NakedPnL does not sell market data. It connects to a trader's exchange or wallet, takes daily NAV snapshots, computes time-weighted return, and writes a chain of SHA-256 hashes. A daily Merkle root over chain heads is anchored to Bitcoin via OpenTimestamps. The audience is allocators, family offices, fund-of-funds, and the trader themselves. The deliverable is a re-verifiable track record.
Feature comparison
| Criterion | NakedPnL | Kaiko |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Verified-performance publisher | Institutional crypto market data and indices vendor |
| Primary deliverable | Per-trader daily TWR series with SHA-256 chain | Trade ticks, order books, reference rates, indices |
| Custody model | None - read-only API keys | Not applicable - data vendor, no custody |
| API access model | Trader connects read-only API key; viewers read public registry | REST, gRPC streaming, WebSocket, CSV download for paying customers |
| Verification mechanism | Daily NAV snapshots, TWR, SHA-256 chain, OpenTimestamps anchor | Vendor-attested data integrity; documented coverage and methodology |
| Independent re-verification | Yes - browser-side re-hash from raw exchange responses | Customer can audit feed against venue data; no public chain |
| Public registry of traders | Yes - opt-in, GDPR consent gated | No - market data only |
| Asset classes covered | Crypto spot/derivatives + equities/FX/futures via IBKR + prediction markets | Crypto markets across centralised and decentralised venues |
| Frequency | Daily snapshots; periodically updated | Real-time and historical at high frequency |
| Cost model | Free public registry; paid trader tiers | Enterprise pricing on request |
| Open methodology | Yes - public reference implementation | Documented methodology; data delivery is commercial |
| Regulatory category | Publisher of verified data | Data and indices vendor (regulator-recognised reference rates) |
| Privacy model | Withdrawable GDPR consent for public listing | B2B data feeds; not a public listing surface |
| Bitcoin anchoring | Yes - OpenTimestamps daily Merkle root | No |
Use cases
- Asset manager pricing a derivative or marking a portfolio: Kaiko reference rates and trade data are the appropriate input.
- Allocator running diligence on an external trader: NakedPnL provides a chained, re-verifiable track record from the trader's actual venue accounts.
- Risk team building VAR or stress models for crypto exposure: Kaiko's order book and trade tick data feed the model; NakedPnL is not a market-data product.
- Family office vetting a fund manager's three-year claims: NakedPnL's append-only chain plus OpenTimestamps anchor counters retroactive editing concerns; Kaiko does not produce trader-level performance.
Pricing
Kaiko's published material does not list public prices; access is enterprise and bespoke. NakedPnL is free for viewers; trader-side paid tiers are available, and the founding seat program is hard-capped at 100 lifetime seats. The two cost models reflect different audiences: Kaiko sells to institutional buyers; NakedPnL is structured to remain a free public registry.
Why this comparison is hard
Kaiko and NakedPnL sit at different layers. Kaiko provides market-level data needed to value assets and benchmark performance. NakedPnL provides individual track records that can be benchmarked against those rates. A serious institutional workflow could plausibly use both: Kaiko for the price stack, NakedPnL for manager diligence. They are complements, not substitutes, and the better question is which problem you are solving rather than which vendor is 'better'.