Poloniex vs Kucoin | Use This Exchange To Save Money
Jack Moreau
Feb 2024
10 min read
Fact checked
Poloniex vs Kucoin: Which exchange is the best fit for your crypto trading needs? Our team has conducted extensive research examining factors such as signup and KYC, available countries, trading fees, products and services and user experience. Find out which exchange comes out on top!
eToro is a multi-asset investment platform. The value of your investments may go up or down. Your capital is at risk.
eToro USA LLC: Investments are subject to market risk. Including the possible loss of principal. Don’t invest unless you’re prepared to lose all the money you invest.
eToro is a multi-asset investment platform. The value of your investments may go up or down. Your capital is at risk.
eToro USA LLC: Investments are subject to market risk. Including the possible loss of principal. Don’t invest unless you’re prepared to lose all the money you invest.
Poloniex and Kucoin are two globally recognized cryptocurrency exchanges that have gained popularity over the years. Founded in 2014, Poloniex is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts and registered in Seychelles.
Poloniex exchange
It offers a wide range of over 350 supported cryptocurrencies and facilitates spot, margin, and futures trading with up to 100X leverage.
With over 1 million users, Poloniex offers its services in most countries around the world, except for the US, China, and OFAC countries. The Poloniex Android app has been downloaded over 500,000 times, and it has a 3.8-star rating based on 9,000 reviews.
Poloniex app
Kucoin on the other hand was founded in 2017 by Michael Gan and is a subsidiary of Seychelles registered MEK Global Limited. It is a global cryptocurrency exchange that offers a variety of services including spot trading, margin trading, futures, staking, and lending.
Kucoin exchange
The platform supports over 700 cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, Ethereum, its native token KuCoin Shares (KCS) and many otheres.
With over 20 million users, Kucoin has gained immense popularity for its user-friendly interface, wide range of altcoins and tokens and product range. The Kucoin Android app has been downloaded over 5 million times sporting a 4.3-star rating based on 120,000 reviews.
Kucoin app
While both exchanges offer a wide range of cryptocurrencies, Kucoin has a significant edge over Poloniex in terms of the number of supported cryptocurrencies.
Poloniex vs Kucoin Signup & KYC
When it comes to signing up for a cryptocurrency exchange, there are a variety of factors to consider including the KYC requirements. Let's take a closer look at how Poloniex and Kucoin stack up in this area. First up, Poloniex.
Poloniex does not require all users to pass KYC verification in order to use their services. Thus users can deposit crypto, trade and withdraw cryptocurrencies without completing the KYC verification process.
Besides that, their signup process is simple and takes less than a minute. Users will need to only enter an email address and a password.
Signing up on Poloniex
Once you've completed the signup process, you can start trading right away if you're comfortable with the limited features available to unverified users. If you do choose to complete KYC verification, you'll need to upload a government ID and a selfie with that document.
Now, let's take a look at Kucoin. KYC verification is also not mandatory in this case which means unverified accounts can buy and sell the same cryptocurrencies as verified accounts. Signing up only takes less than a minute as only basic email signup is required.
If you want to access higher withdrawal limits or other advanced features, you'll need to complete KYC verification. Basic verification can be approved in hours while KYC verification can take up to 2-3 business days.
KYC verification benefits Kucoin
Overall, Both Kucoin and Poloniex satisfy the needs of users who value privacy and don't want to be forced to complete KYC verification in order to use the exchange.
Poloniex vs Kucoin Products & Services
Poloniex and Kucoin are two exchanges that offer a wide range of trading products and services. Both satisfy the needs of both professional traders and more average beginners to some extent.
The services that Poloniex offers are spot and futures trading, grid trading, the option to buy crypto with card via simplex, launchpad, earn products and NFTs.
The average daily spot volume on Poloniex is over $80 million and futures leverage can go up to 100X.
Poloniex earn
For cross margin trading, Poloniex supports a maximum leverage of 3x. The user experience on Poloniex is not very polished but rather basic. Having said that, the exchange is easy to navigate and offers a decent range of products and features.
Spot trading on Poloniex
Kucoin has evolved into a powerhouse of a crypto exchange now rivaling the biggest names in the industry with its wide range of products and services.
Kucoin shines with its spot trading feature where its users can buy and sell a solid range of over 700 cryptocurrencies and altcoins.
Kucoin Spot Trading
What's great about Kucoin is that they are adding new coins and tokens weekly making it a go-to platform for discovering rare altcoins that are harder to find elsewhere.
Kucoin Crypto Markets
For those looking to amplify their trading strategies, Kucoin provides margin trading with up to 10X leverage.
Kucoin Margin Trading
This allows traders to make leveraged bets, choosing to go long or short on over 100 cryptocurrencies, using either cross or isolated margin.
Kucoin also addresses the needs of traders looking for less risky leveraged positions through its leveraged tokens.
Kucoin Leveraged Tokens
These tokens allow taking long or short positions with smaller leverage (2-4X), eliminating the need for loans and the risk of liquidation.
Kucoin also offers futures trading which includes a selection of over 250 tradable futures contracts, encompassing products like USDT and USDC margin contracts, Coin-margin contracts, and the use of grid bots for automated strategies.
Kucoin Futures
Kucoin caters to the high-risk appetite of some traders, offering an impressive leverage of up to 125X, a feature particularly attractive to those who enjoy high-stakes trading.
Kucoin Futures Trading
For those interested in automated trading, Kucoin offers a diverse array of trading bots. Options include spot grid, futures grid, martingale, smart rebalance, infinity grid, and Dollar-Cost Averaging (DCA).
Kucoin Trading Bots
In the competitive realm of trading volumes, Kucoin holds its own by ranking in the top 20 for spot trading with $1 billion in 24-hour trading volume, and over $2 billion in futures trading volume.
Kucoin Trading Volumes
For users seeking to earn yield on their digital assets, Kucoin's extensive earn products provides various opportunities including earn savings, staking, and dual investments.
Kucoin Earn
On the staking front, Kucoin offers access to rewards on a wide range of popular blockchains such as Ethereum, Solana, Cosmos, Polkadot, Injective, and many others.
Kucoin Staking
Further diversifying its offerings, Kucoin has entered the sphere of token launchpads with its Kucoin Spotlight. This platform provides users access to new investment opportunities with allocations based on the value of holdings on Kucoin.
Kucoin Launchpad
For NFT enthusiasts, Kucoin has established its own dedicated NFT marketplace named Wonderland where users can buy and sell NFTs on the KCC blockchain and Polygon.
Kucoin NFTs
For those that prefer to store their assets and trade in a non-custodial manner, Kucoin has launched the Halo Wallet available for mobile download or as a Chrome extension.
When it comes to trading fees, Poloniex and Kucoin offer different options for their users. Poloniex charges a 0.145% maker fee and a 0.16% taker fee for spot trading and for futures, the maker and taker fees are 0.02% and 0.05% respectively. Users on Poloniex apart can lower their fees by either trading more than $50,000 per month or by having a TRX balance exceeding $49 dollars.
Poloniex spot fees
On the other hand, Kucoin charges a lower spot maker fee of 0.10% and a taker fee of 0.10% and offers futures maker and taker fees of 0.02% and 0.06% respectively. Just like Poloniex, Kucoin provides its users with a way to lower their fees. For both spot and futures trading, once monthly trade volumes exceed 50 Bitcoins or if the user holds at least 1000 KCS tokens, the fees will be reduced.
Kucoin spot fees
Both exchanges offer competitive trading fees but Kucoin is lower in terms of spot trading while Poloniex has a small edge in terms of the taker fee for futures trading.
While both exchanges offer a variety of cryptocurrency trading pairs, their deposit methods for fiat currencies differ. Poloniex does not support any fiat currency deposits and only allows deposits in cryptocurrencies. This means that if you want to trade on Poloniex, you'll need to first purchase cryptocurrency elsewhere and then send it to your Poloniex wallet. You can also buy cryptocurrencies with card via third-party providers but thats a rather expensive option.
Buy crypto with card on Poloniex
Kucoin on it's end does supports depositing fiat currencies for 28 different currencies such as EUR, AUD, CHF, GBP, RUB and SEK. However, the majority of deposit options on Kucoin are with Visa and Mastercard and it's worth highlighting that Kucoin's deposit fees are much higher than other exchanges. They charge a steep 3.8% fee for deposits made with Visa and Mastercard, which is significantly higher than other competitors in the industry.
Poloniex and Kucoin both offer a range of withdrawal methods for their users, but there are some key differences to be aware of. Poloniex for example does not offer fiat withdrawals but does of course support a wide range of cryptocurrencies that users can withdraw at varying fees depending on the blockchain.
For example, withdrawing Bitcoin on Poloniex comes with a 0.0005 BTC fee while withdrawing Ethereum incurs a 0.0032 ETH fee. Solana withdrawals cost 0.01 SOL and USDT withdrawals will cost 5 USDT.
In contrast, Kucoin offers fiat withdrawals exclusively via SEPA for EUR with a 5 EUR withdrawal fee. Kucoin similarly charges different fees based on the type of cryptocurrency being withdrawn.
Kucoin fiat withdrawal
For example, withdrawing Bitcoin comes with a 0.001 BTC fee while withdrawing SOL from Kucoin costs 0.01 plus a percentage of the withdrawal amount. Overall, Kucoin also offers a fiat withdrawal option for EUR via SEPA, albeit at a higher cost of 5 EUR per withdrawal, while Poloniex only supports cryptocurrency withdrawals.
Poloniex and Kucoin are both globally recognized cryptocurrency exchanges that cater to a wide range of traders all around the world. Poloniex offers over 350 supported cryptocurrencies, spot, margin, and futures trading with up to 100X leverage and has over 1 million users.
Kucoin offers twice as many cryptocurrencies as Poloniex (700) and products such as spot trading, margin trading, futures, staking, and lending, and has over 20 million users.
When it comes to KYC requirements, neither Poloniex or Kucoin forces their users to complete KYC in order to trade. In terms of trading fees, Kucoin has the edge with 0.1% spot trading fee for makers and takers while Poloniex charges a higher 0.145% maker fee and a 0.16% taker fee for spot trading.
In terms of fiat deposits and withdrawals, Poloniex does not support any fiat currency deposits, while Kucoin supports depositing fiat currencies for 28 different currencies such as EUR, AUD, CHF, GBP, RUB, and SEK, but charges a high 3.8% fee for deposits made with Visa and Mastercard.
Both Poloniex and Kucoin offer a variety of trading products and services with Poloniex being a bit more basic in terms of user experience and range of products than Kucoin.
eToro is a multi-asset investment platform. The value of your investments may go up or down. Your capital is at risk.
eToro USA LLC: Investments are subject to market risk. Including the possible loss of principal. Don’t invest unless you’re prepared to lose all the money you invest.
eToro is a multi-asset investment platform. The value of your investments may go up or down. Your capital is at risk.
eToro USA LLC: Investments are subject to market risk. Including the possible loss of principal. Don’t invest unless you’re prepared to lose all the money you invest.
Author
Jack Moreau
Jack is a crypto writer and reviewer who has been active in the space since he caught the crypto bug in 2017. With a passion for trying out new shiny things, Jack is always eager to try the latest cryptocurrency exchanges, wallets or DeFi applications.
