IIAwards - Review of KuCoin

As part of the recently announced IIAwards, in which we celebrate innovations in the fintech and crypto industry, today we will talk about KuCoin.

KuCoin is a cryptocurrency exchange based in Hong Kong. This third party exchange allows you to buy, sell and trade lots of different cryptocurrencies. It was created in May 2017 by a group of experienced business specialists who had previously worked on projects such as Ant Financial and iBox PAY. KuCoin is one of the newest cryptocurrency exchanges in the industry. The objective of the founders was to create a simple and safe platform for people all over the world to use to trade a range of digital coins. In the long-term, KuCoin wants to be one of the 10 top largest exchanges in the world, and they hope to achieve this by the end of 2020. As of today, KuCoin provides services in most countries in the world, including Turkey, India, Japan, Canada, United Kingdom, Singapore and many others.

One of the main aims of the founders of KuCoin has been to provide some of the most competitive fees in the industry. For every trade you execute on KuCoin, you’ll pay a fee of 0.10%. KuCoin does not charge any fees for deposits. However, the transaction costs that apply to a certain coin or token will be charged to the user. KuCoin does not charge any fees for withdrawals. However, some coins do have their own fee structure, so there may be costs associated with sending your coins. This is where KuCoin distinguishes itself from other exchanges. Also, for trading, withdrawing and depositing cryptocurrencies, there are no limits on KuCoin. Because of this, it is entirely up to each crypto trader how much money he or she will invest.

As one of the top cryptocurrency exchanges, KuCoin supports a wide variety of crypto assets. It allows you to buy and sell over 200 cryptocurrencies with low fees worldwide. Among the list of the most popular cryptocurrencies it is possible to find ones like BTC, ETH, NEO, USDT and KCS. The range consists of hundreds of coins and tokens and is regularly expanded. The company allows its clients to buy cryptos with top fiat currencies, including USD, EUR, CNY, GBP, CAD, AUD, and many more. KuCoin lets you buy cryptocurrencies with fiat using its P2P fiat trade, credit or debit card via Simplex, Banxa, or PayMIR, or its Fast Buy service, which facilitates IDR, VND and CNY purchases of Bitcoin (BTC) or Tether (USDT). Additionally, it is possible to long or short your favorite cryptocurrencies with up to 100x leverage. The company also offers futures contracts on a range of cryptocurrencies.

Above all, the website is professional and accessible. The exchange is intuitive and beginner-friendly. The trading system has adopted hardware-accelerated, highly-efficient memory matching technology, with its order-making peak value at 2 million+/second, and its order-processing peak value at 1 million+/second. These statistics are thousands of times faster than the normal industry standard. This technology can guarantee no delay or lag in the core order process when the market booms. The underlying technologies support infinite cryptocurrency trading pairs. In the early phase, KuCoin provides BTC, ETH and USDT markets, which includes the trading pair of KCS, LTC, NEO and various highly negotiable ERC-20 tokens. The support list will be enlarged shortly in the future. Part of KuCoin’s plan is to release a unique feature which can help cryptocurrency managers or amateurs to self-register new cryptocurrency pairs and start trading automatically.

On November 1, 2018, KuCoin implemented know your customer (KYC) verification to safeguard against criminals and money laundering schemes. Nevertheless, account verification at KuCoin is entirely optional, especially if you’re a small volume trader. You do not have to verify your identity to trade, however, verified users get benefits such as increased daily withdrawal limits or simplified account recovery in case of a lost password or two-factor authentication device. At pixel time, KuCoin has three verification levels:

In order to open a KuCoin account, the client only needs to visit their official homepage and agree to the terms and conditions. No identity verification is required to begin trading.

Dedicated to resolving customers' needs without any delay, KuCoin offers 24/7 customer services through multi-channels, including a webpage, hotline and e-mail support. KuCoin's pre-pay and withdrawal safety is inspected by an AI algorithm. Once the request passes the inspection, the automation system will execute entry and remit instantly, ensuring both convenience and safety. Additionally, the KuCoin site aggregates numerous useful articles in its FAQ section, covering topics from trading strategies to technological manuals concerning the usage of its platform. Registration invite links and QR code will be distributed to all the KuCoin users. Users will be able to enjoy the direct and indirect promotion bonus by inviting new users to register. For instance, if user B registers via user A's invitation code and trade, then a certain portion of the trading fees will be awarded to user A as direct bonus; and if user B invites user C (and user C invites users D), a portion of the their trading fees goes to user A as indirect bonus too. The trading website is translated into 17 languages, including English, Russian, South Korean, Dutch, Portuguese, Chinese (simplified and traditional), German, French, Spanish, Vietnamese, Turkish, Italian, Malay, Indonesian, Hindi and Thai.

The KuCoin apps are available on both the Apple App Store and the Google Play store. It has recently freshened up its UI design with Real-time quotes synced with the official website. It is possible to access the company's 24/7 support also from its app. Dynamic candlestick charts, price warning setups and the collection of client's favorite trading pairs will allow the client to follow a real-time market trend view. The Double account management that is highly secure and more flexible; free internal transfer function; visible asset trendline and the presence of intuitive order history overview provide a clearly visible asset interface. The app also has an advanced alarm system that notifies the client upon logins from other devices; movements in the token price and it reaching the client's preset warning price; various news & promotions and asset change announcements.

The exchange brings about a compelling mix of security precautions on both system and operational levels. System-wise, the exchange was constructed according to finance industry standards, which grant it bank-level data encryption and security. On the operational level, the exchange employs specialized risk control departments that enforce strict rules for data usage. In April 2020, the exchange announced a strategic cooperation with Onchain Custodian, a Singapore-based crypto custody service provider, which is taking care of KuCoin’s crypto assets. The funds in custody are backed by Lockton, which is one of the largest private insurance brokers. On the user side of things, you can maximize your KuCoin account security by setting up:

With this being said, it is important to mention that KuCoin has had notable security breaches in the past.

On September 24, 2020, the Singapore-headquartered digital asset exchange KuCoin said in a statement that it had detected large withdrawals of Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) tokens to an unknown wallet beginning at 19:05 UTC on Friday. In a live stream on 4:30 UTC Saturday, KuCoin CEO Johnny Lyu said one or more hackers obtained the private keys to the exchange’s hot wallets. KuCoin transferred what was left in them to new hot wallets, abandoned the old ones and froze customer deposits and withdrawals, Lyu said. As a result, Over 280 USD million had been drained in the KuCoin crypto exchange hack. This event has severely damaged the reputation of the exchange.