KuCoin Review

KuCoin Review: Overview

In this KuCoin review we lay out all the pros and cons of the KuCoin exchange. You will find out about the different services and features, KYC, altcoin selection, trading fees, customer service, security and more.

KuCoin is a crypto-to-crypto exchange that is packed with a great variety of features. As a result customers sign up to KuCoin for a variety of different reasons. Above all, most people are attracted by the huge selection of altcoins and the low trading fees.

Additionally KuCoin have a high daily trading volume of well over $1 billion and good liquidity. This makes it a pretty solid exchange and trading platform.

Sourced from CoinMarketCap

Some users are also attracted by the fact that KuCoin do not have KYC (Know Your Customer) forms to fill. That is to say up to a certain degree.

However KuCoin does have some drawbacks. Like for example how it does not accept fiat deposits. Secondly it is a bit more complex to use and not a good exchange for beginners.

Regardless according to KuCoin 1 in 4 crypto users have an account with KuCoin. Moreover KuCoin is well rated by many organisations. Hence it is regularly featured as a top 10 crypto exchange.

KuCoin Review: Services and Features

Spot Trading

Spot trading is trading at the current market price. The are many crypto pairs available to trade on the site.

Margin Trading

You can trade using leverage. This means that you can borrow other people’s funds to trade with. If you have never used leverage before it is best to stay away from it.

This is because if you make money you can pay off your debt. However if you lose money you will end up in a tough spot. You do not want to put yourself in this position.

KuCoin Bot

KuCoin have over 6.5 million bots that KuCoin customers worldwide can use. The nice thing about the bot is that customers can automate their trading strategies. Additionally it is free to use, easy to set up and saves you time.

Earn Crypto

There are several different ways you can earn crypto passive income on KuCoin. They are:

• Crypto Lending – you can lend out your crypto to earn interest. Some cryptocurrencies can earn you double digit annualised returns.
• KuCoin Earn – This is professional asset management. There are many products to choose from that are highly flexible.  
• KCS Bonus – If you hold KuCoin tokens you can earn bonuses daily.
• KuCoin Pool – There are crypto mining pools for BTC, BCH and ETH available. You can join this mining pool and get one of the lowest mining fee rates available on the market.
• Cloud Mining – If you do not have mining capabilities you can buy cloud mining on the KuCoin Pool.
• KuCoin Win – This is a lottery you can take part in.

KuCoin Staking

Staking is the act of locking up your proof-of-stake crypto for a certain period. When you do this, you help the network to verify transactions and in return you receive rewards. To clarify, the reward you get is based on the amount of crypto you stake.

KuCoin have a good list of tokens which you can stake.

KuCoin Staking Rewards and Redemption Period

* Annual percentage rate

Before you stake coins you should double check the currency staking APR rates. They can change over time.

KuCoin Review: App

If you want to trade on the go then you can download the KuCoin app. It’s available for both Android and IOS mobile phones from Google Play and the App Store respectively.

KuCoin Review: Supported Languages

The KuCoin website supports 19 different languages. That includes English and various other European and Asian languages. However the exchange community on social media are not available to all 19 languages. That is to say they are always available in English.

KuCoin Review: Supported Currencies

KuCoin supports a large list of 600+ cryptocurrencies across different cryptoasset classes. That of course includes:

• Popular cryptocurrencies; Bitcoin, Ethereum and XRP.
• Privacy coins; Monero and Pirate Chain.
• DeFi coins; Aave and Luna.
• Metaverse coins; Sand and Mana.
• Other popular altcoins; Avalanche, Cardano, Polkadot and Solana.

KuCoin Supported Countries

While we were doing this KuCoin review we noticed that KuCoin do not openly disclose the list of supported countries. Meanwhile they do say they have registered users from 207 countries and regions world-wide. We do know that:

This is because the US has more stringent regulation than most other countries. As a US citizen you can still register an account with them. However you would need to take some things into consideration. We cover these points in the ‘KuCoin KYC’ section below.

KuCoin KYC

You do not need to do KYC verification to use KuCoin freely. However it will limit the amounts you can trade and withdraw every 24 hours.

KuCoin Withdrawal Limit

KuCoin Trading Limit

Anyone from around the world can sign up to KuCoin and not do KYC. Certainly that also includes US citizens. For people residing in most countries opting not to do KYC is not a problem. Of course this also depends on how much funds you have. However:

On the other hand KuCoin can come in handy for if you live in particular US States. This is especially the case if you do not have other crypto exchanges available.

KuCoin Payment Methods

KuCoin have many different payment methods. However this does not make up for one of KuCoin’s major drawbacks. You cannot deposit fiat into your account.

To clarify you can buy crypto using fiat. That is, if you opt to use credit cards, Google Pay or Apple Pay. However bank transfer is not available as an option.

As a result this will limit the amount of crypto you can buy. Additionally you can only fast buy Tether (USDT), Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH).

A work around for this is if you purchase crypto using another exchange. After that you can transfer your crypto funds to KuCoin and buy or trade other cryptocurrencies.

KuCoin Deposit Fees

There are no fees when you deposit cryptocurrencies into your KuCoin account. So what you send to your KuCoin crypto wallet is what you will see in your wallet.

On the other hand KuCoin also says that buying crypto with fiat using their instant buy feature is free. However KuCoin have hidden fees in this case. They slightly increase the price of the crypto you are buying and pocket the difference.

We are not sure how much extra they bump up the rate. However it is probably around a couple of percentage points. These are not the most transparent practices which is rather unfortunate and one of KuCoin’s few negatives.

KuCoin Withdrawal Fees

Here are the withdrawal fees for some of the most popular cryptocurrencies:

KuCoin Trading Fees

KuCoin trading fees are competitive and one of the lowest amongst all the cryptocurrency exchanges. You can save on fees depending on how much you trade on a 30 day basis. So the more you trade the less you will pay in fees.

KuCoin Spot Fee Table

The fees keep getting lower the more you trade. In fact KuCoin will pay you a percentage as a market maker if you trade more than 8000 BTC. However we can assume that most people do not fall within this category. Hence why we did not include information over 1000 BTC in the table.

Moreover if you opt to trade using KCS tokens you can save an extra 20% on fees.

You can apply for the 20% discount by navigating to your profile and switching on ‘KCS Pay Fees’.

KuCoin Futures Fees Table

KCS Holdings Fees Table

If you hold a certain amount of KuCoin’s own token (KCS) you can also save on fees. So if you are holding more KCS then trading you can still benefit from the lower trading fees.

On the other hand although holding the KCS token has its advantages it has its disadvantages. KCS is not a stable coin and its value is volatile much like other cryptocurrencies. 

KuCoin Support

If you get stuck on anything, KuCoin have a few solutions where to get your answer. You can use the:

• FAQ help centre
• Live chat
• Mobile app support

Online Guides

These are handy guides with content and image resources to help with any customer questions. Customers can resort to these guides for quick answers whenever they get stuck.

Sometimes we found it was hard to find the specific information we were after. So KuCoin has some improvement to make in this section.

Customer Support

The guides will only help you get so far. So if the guides do not help, customers can resort to the live chat feature on the site.

However the live chat feature is operated by a bot. The bot only funnels users to articles on the KuCoin website. So it’s a bit like going round in circles. Although the bot will prompt you to submit an email to KuCoin if you need further assistance.

As mentioned customers that are not verified do not get as much support from KuCoin. So the amount of help they can provide will depend on the issue you are experiencing.

Customer Complaints

Most importantly there are not many public complaints about KuCoin. This is good especially considering it has over 10 millions customers signed up to its platform. So even though KuCoin have a negative rating on Trustpilot the majority of customers are happy with the service.

KuCoin Hack

In September 2020 KuCoin got hacked and thieves made off with $280 million. The KuCoin hack was large, but the exchange took immediate action to contain the situation.

Although it was bad, KuCoin handled the situation very well by taking a number of steps. They immediately advised customers about the hack. Additionally they froze all deposits and withdrawals for a week. As a result they were able to investigate and sort out any issues with the platform.

In the meantime KuCoin worked with law enforcement agencies. Chainalysis analysed the situation to help KuCoin get the funds back.

KuCoin Hacked Funds Progress Table

Luckily after KuCoin collaborated with different organisations they managed to retrieve $239 million back. Unfortunately they were never able to recover the last $46 million of customer funds.

However they did reimburse their customers back in full by resorting to their insurance fund. So no KuCoin clients lost any funds as a result of the hack. Additionally they reviewed their practices and made several wide ranging changes and upgrades to their security.

So although the hack was initially a shock to KuCoin customers, KuCoin did a great job with handling the situation. As a result their reputation remained relatively intact. In fact it is partly why they are still considered one of the best exchanges worldwide.

KuCoin Review: Security

As a result of the hack KuCoin changed their practices and beefed up their security. They ended up upgrading their whole security system.

List of security features KuCoin changed

• The network security was increased,
• Their website security was upgraded,
• The security on their app was increased and
• So was the security on their API.
• Investment in security was increased,
• Their security team was restructured.

Apart from that KuCoin also have a bounty program for people to report vulnerabilities. Moreover a percentage of client assets are safeguarded in cold storage. These are practices that are implemented by some of the more secure crypto exchanges.

Additionally KuCoin have some security features you can activate in your account.

You should consider implementing:

• 2-Factor Authentication (2FA),
• Security questions,
• Email notifications,
• A separate trading password,
• Restricting logins by IP address and
• Activating the anti-phishing protections.

2-Factor Authentication

Although 2FA is great, we would definitely recommend you use Google Authenticator over mobile authentication. That is to say because it is more secure.

It is unfortunate that KuCoin has not implemented security keys. Otherwise we would recommend them over other 2FA methods. However if they do support security keys in future we definitely recommend you upgrade to using them. This is because they have a fantastic record of security with no account take overs.

KuCoin Review: History

The idea behind KuCoin came to Michael Gan and Eric Don after using Mt. Gox in 2012. Mt. Gox was difficult to use back in the early days of crypto. As a result they thought they would set up a cryptocurrency exchange themselves and make it more user friendly.   

By the end of 2013 the two developers started writing the first lines of code for the KuCoin exchange. By the 15^th September 2017 the company officially launched. The company is incorporated in the Seychelles and their headquarters are in Singapore.

KuCoin Review: Conclusion

To conclude this KuCoin review we are happy to say that KuCoin is overall a great exchange. Its main drawback is that it does not support fiat. Secondly KuCoin has hidden fees when using their fast buy feature.

However KuCoin has a lot of good points that offset these negatives. It offers one of the lowest trading fees in the industry and a huge selection of altcoins. Additionally this exchange is not just great for trading. It is jam packed with features that customers are delighted with.

That includes tools for trading. However it also includes features like the trading bots and the ability to earn passive income in different ways. It has such a variety of different services it is not a surprise that it is such a popular exchange.

Visit KuCoin

Over 600 cryptocurrencies
Among top 10 platforms
High volume and liquidity

KuCoin Frequently Asked Questions