Kucoin Review | The Value Proposition For Trading On Kucoin
Jack Moreau
Feb 2024
8 min to read
Fact checked
Introduction: Kucoin is a global exchange located in Seychelles which has been around for many years. Today the company offers multiple products and services that cater to beginners and professionals alike. In this in-depth breakdown, we cover the full spectrum of Kucoin's product offering so that you can decide if it makes sense for you to use!
Kucoin was founded in 2013 by Michael Gan, Eric Don and others, but it was not until 2017 when the cryptocurrency exchange officially launched. The company has over 650 employees with the majority based in Singapore.
Kucoin exchange
Kucoin, or as it’s also called, “the people’s exchange” is headquartered in Seychelles and has over 20 million registered users across 207 countries.
Kucoin offers more than 800 cryptocurrencies, over 1,250 trading pairs and has achieved over $1 trillion in accumulated trading volume.
Kucoin cryptocurrencies
Kucoin has raised over $180 million from investors such as Circle Ventures and Jump Capital. Its latest fundraising valued the company at $10 billion dollars.
Kucoin KYC Requirements
Signing up to Kucoin is easy and only takes 2 minutes.
1. Visit Kucoin and click signup in the top right corner 2. Signup by entering email or phone number 3. Enter the activation code that has been sent to you
Kucoin signup
Once you have signed up, you can deposit crypto or buy with your credit card, bank card, or through third-party payment providers. These options are available in the top right corner.
Buy Crypto Kucoin
KuCoin has taken an approach where it offers users the option to trade without KYC and provide those that complete KYC with additional benefits.
Kucoin KYC Verification benefits
With an unverified account, users can still buy and sell cryptocurrencies but with limits on how much they can withdraw each day. To access full trading privileges and higher withdrawal limits, users will need to go through the KYC verification process.
The signup process for Kucoin is also incredibly simple as all you need is a basic email signup. Basic verification can be approved in hours and KYC verification can take up to a business day or two in the slowest of cases.
Kucoin: Products & Services
Kucoin has evolved significantly to become a comprehensive crypto service provider, now rivaling some of the largest exchanges in the world in terms of its product offerings.
At the heart of Kucoin's services is spot trading which allows users to buy and sell a diverse array of over 700 cryptocurrencies and altcoins.
Kucoin Spot Trading
Kucoin is continually adding new coins and tokens every week, making it a prime destination for traders looking to explore and invest in harder-to-find altcoins not available on other platforms.
Kucoin Crypto Markets
For those interested in more advanced trading strategies, Kucoin offers margin trading with up to 10X leverage. This allows users to amplify their trading positions, potentially increasing their gains (or losses).
Kucoin Margin Trading
Traders can choose to take long (betting on price increases) or short (betting on price decreases) positions, using either cross or isolated margin on over 100 cryptocurrencies.
In addition to spot and margin trading, Kucoin provides futures trading options with over 250 tradable futures contracts. These include various products like USDT and USDC margin contracts, Coin-margin contracts, and grid bots.
Kucoin Futures
Particularly for more experienced or risk-tolerant traders, Kucoin allows for up to 125X leverage on futures, appealing to those who are comfortable with high-risk, high-reward strategies.
Kucoin Perps Trading
For traders who prefer less extreme leverage, Kucoin also has leveraged tokens where users can take long or short positions with smaller leverage (ranging from 2-4X) without the need for loans or the risk of liquidations.
Kucoin Leveraged Tokens
Kucoin also offers a range of options for trading bots including strategies like spot grid, futures grid, martingale, smart rebalance, infinity grid, and Dollar-Cost Averaging (DCA).
Kucoin Trading Bots
In terms of trading activity, Kucoin holds a decent position in the market. It ranks in the top 20 for spot trading volumes, with over $1 billion traded in a 24-hour period, and over $2 billion in futures trading.
Kucoin Trading Volumes
For users looking to earn yield on their digital assets, Kucoin has developed an Earn section where users can engage in activities like earn savings, staking, and dual investments.
Kucoin Earn
The staking options on Kucoin are particularly varied, providing access to staking rewards for a wide range of popular blockchains such as Ethereum, Solana, Cosmos, Polkadot, Injective, and many others.
Kucoin Staking
Kucoin has also ventured into offering launchpads for new token launches through Kucoin Spotlight. This platform gives users access to new investment opportunities, often determining allocations based on the number of assets users hold on Kucoin.
Kucoin Launchpad
Another interesting feature on Kucoin is its dedicated NFT marketplace (Wonderland) that allows users to buy and sell NFTs on the KCC blockchain and Polygon, with plans to support additional blockchains like ETH, BSC, and SLP.
Kucoin NFTs
Lastly, for those who prefer non-custodial trading, Kucoin has introduced the Halo Wallet. This web 3 wallet offers a more secure and private way to manage digital assets and can be downloaded on mobile devices or through the Chrome extension store.
Kucoin Halo Wallet
Kucoinhas its own native ERC-20 token called KCS. Holders of at least 6 KCS get to earn a share of the daily dividends taken.
50% of Kucoins daily trading volume is shared with the token holders. Token holders also receive additional benefits such as fee discounts and the ability to participate in the launch of new tokens.
In summary, Kucoin offers a wide range of services catering to various aspects of cryptocurrency trading and investment, suitable for both beginners and experienced traders.
Kucoin has a tier based fee schedule that begins at 0.1% for Makers and Takers. You are considered a Taker when your order is executed immediately and a Maker when your order is not immediately matched.
Kucoin spot trading fees
Depending on your trading volume and the number of KSC tokens that you hold, the trading fees can go down according to this schedule.
Kucoin Future Fees
The future fees in Kucoin start at 0.02% for makers and 0.06% for takers. Their futures fees are also based on a tier structure that goes down depending on overall trading volume and the number of KCS one holds.
Kucoin supports over 70 payments methods, including Visa, Mastercard, Paypal, Sepa, Transferwise, Cash App, Apple & Google pay and many more.
To transfer funds via card or bank deposit, you need to verify your identity via a KYC registration process.
Kucoin fiat deposit
Deposit limits range between $5-$5000. Currently over 40 fiat currencies are supported including USD, EUR, GBP, RUB, CSY, AUD and many more.
A $100 USD deposit via debit or credit card returns $95.5 worth of USDT. A hefty 4.5% commission in other words.
Kucoin offers 5 ways for their customers to buy cryptocurrencies:
1. Fast trade: Buy crypto in one click with your credit card 2. P2P-trading: Buy and sell crypto with other people 3. Third party: Buy and sell through third party providers 4. Convert: Simple interface to trade one asset to another 5. Kucoin markets: Buy and sell cryptos through their order book
How to withdraw from Kucoin?
While crypto deposits are always free of charge, we have outlined the withdrawal fees for some of the most popular cryptocurrencies below. These withdrawal fees are much higher than their competitors.
Bitcoin (BTC): 0.001 BTC
Ethereum (ETH): 0.01 ETH
Solana (SOL): 0.01 SOL + % of Total
Cosmos (ATOM): 0.01 ATOM + % of Total
Polkadot (DOT): 0.1 DOT + % of Total
USDT (ERC 20): 25 USDT
Kucoin: Apps & Wallet
Kucoin is available on both the App and Google Play store and have over 5 million downloads with a 4.5 star rating out of 137,000 reviews.
Kucoin App
You can easily deposit funds with debit/credit card (50 fiat currencies to choose from) and access well known products such as spot, margin and futures trading.
Kucoin also have their own non-custodial wallet with over 10 million active users worldwide. With Kucoins web 3 wallet, there is no KYC and you have full ownership (and responsibility) for managing your passwords and funds.
Kucoin Web3 Wallet
Is Kucoin Safe?
Kucoin previously had a security hiccup when it got hackedfor $280 million in 2020. This was one of the largest security breaches in crypto at the time.
Kucoin handled the situation excellently by recovering 84% of the funds and covering for the remaining part themselves. Today Kucoin has a 9/10 trustscore on Coingecko.
Insurance & custody
Kucoin announced on April 2020 a collaboration with crypto asset custody platform, Onchain Custodian. On top of this, user funds are insured by Lockton, one of the worlds largest private insurance brokerage companies.
Kucoin Licenses & regulations
KuCoin is at the time of writing not regulated or officially licensed by any country. For this reason Kucoin is not available in the United States.
Kucoin provides customer support through email, phone and a 24/7 live chat 24/7. Currently Kucoin has a very low Trustpilot rating of 1.7 based on almost 800 reviews. Kucoin is also available through different social media channels such as.
When choosing a cryptocurrency exchange, it’s important that there is plenty of liquidity for trading. Higher liquidity means smaller spreads which translates to lower costs for users.
Kucoin had over 1.5$ billion in 24 hour trading volume and below we have outlined the 10 most liquid spot markets. Note that this number is for the past 24 hours and is continuously changing.
eToro USA LLC: Investments are subject to market risk. Including the possible loss of principal.
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.
