Kucoin Exchange Review

Kucoin – cryptocurrency exchange with 400+ cryptos

Kucoin is a cryptocurrency exchange initially launched in Hong Kong, but currently Kucoin is located in Singapore.

This Kucoin review will hopefully help you understand Kucoin better - we will try to talk about everything related to Kucoin. We trade in Kucoin ourselves as well and besides general information we also try to talk about our own experiences as well.

Based on trading volume, Kucoin ranks around 10th. But when it comes to trust rating and security, you can usually find Kucoin on 4th or 5th place.

Kucoin is a simple platform for buying and selling a good range of digital currencies. Not only can you trade all the bigger and more known cryptos there, but Kucoin also offers you access to a great number of smaller less known altcoins with lower trading volumes.

Kucoin has a user base of roughly 8 million.

Considering Kucoin is a rather new exchange, that’s an impressive number.

Allegedly, one in four crypto holders in the world use Kucoin services.

In addition to giving its users the opportunity to trade lesser known altcoins, Kucoin has a number of other features that set it apart from many other exchanges.

Kucoin is not licensed to operate in US, and as such, is a good exchange mainly for people living outside the United States.

At the same time, traders from US can create an account.

But considering Americans are not able to go through the KYC process, we’d recommend traders from the US to choose some other exchange instead (such as Coinbase).

We’ll come back to the topic of Kucoin US customers later on.

Kucoin has also it's own cryptocurrency - KuCoin Token, the KCS coin.

Who is Kucoin meant for?

Kucoin is mainly meant for:

• traders who want easy access to lesser known altcoins
• traders who value low fees
• traders who value security
• traders who want to see advanced features
• trades who are ideally not based in the US.
  

Get Kucoin bonus upon registration - up to 500 USDT welcome gift

Kucoin offers new users a welcome gift worth up to 500 USDT.

When you sign up with Kucoin, you get a mystery box, or as they call it, a blind box.  

What you will win after your first deposit (min $50), we can’t tell you, as the bonuses are distributed randomly.

Kucoin bonus can only be used for trading and can not be withdrawn.

Kucoin safety and regulation

Your assets are safe on Kucoin. Or at least as safe as they can be. Kucoin offers multilayer encryption, multi-factor authentication, and your assets are also secured and insured should the unthinkable happen.

Is Kucoin safe to use?

Kucoin exchange offers bank-level security and they implement a number of security measures to make sure your data as well as your assets would be as safe as possible.

Kucoin insurance provider is Lockton and the crypto assets stored in Kucoin are secured by Onchain Custodian.

Kucoin keeps part of the crypto assets in hot wallets, but majority of the assets in cold wallets.

Has Kucoin ever been hacked?

Yes. In fact, Kucoin was hacked in 2020.

However, they managed to recover majority of the stolen funds and the rest of the funds were covered by Kucoin insurance. Which means that users did not lose any funds.

Is Kucoin trustworthy?

When Kucoin was hacked in 2020, all users got their stolen funds back. But that’s just part of the story.

Kucoin was transparent about what happened exactly and took quick action.

And simply based on this information we can say that Kucoin is a trustworthy exchange.

Kucoin Account security options

Kucoin offers multiple options to maximize your Kucoin account security.

The user-level protection features include:

• Username/password
• Two-factor authentication
• Kucoin Trading password

Additionally there are:

• Security questions
  
• Anti-phishing safety phrase
  
• Login safety phrase
  
• Phone verification
  
• Email notifications
  
• Option to Restrict login IP
  

All in one, Kucoin has set up a number of user-level security settings to help you keep your account secure.

After logging in to your Kucoin account you can't start trading on Kucoin right away. Before you can actually make a trade in Kucoin Spot trading platform, you will first need to enter your Kucoin Trading password.

Which countries does Kucoin accept people from?

Kucoin accepts people from more than 200 countries.

So chances are good that you can create a Kucoin account, should you want to.

Can people from USA use Kucoin?

That’s sort of a question with two answers.

Firstly, yes, people from US can sign up and use Kucoin.

Secondly, no, Kucoin does not have a US license.

This means that while US traders can sign up and also trade on Kucoin, they can not access the KYC verification process.

And this means you have restrictions on how much money you can withdraw from Kucoin.

So let’s say it again – Kucoin is not licensed to operate in the United States, but traders from the US might be able to trade in Kucoin with some limitations stemming from the fact that they are notable to go through Kucoin ID verification process.

Kucoin exchange details

Where is Kucoin located? Let’s look at that and other details below.

Year established: 2017	Payment methods: SEPA, Skrill, PayPal, Apple Pay, Debit card, Credit card, Cryptocurrency	Number of Employees: ~ 250
Number of Cryptos: ~400	Founder and CEO: Johnny Lyu	Number of accounts: Over 10 million
Official website: https://www.kucoin.com	Headquarters: Singapore, Singapore

How many cryptos does Kucoin have, where can I find Kucoin coin list?

Kucoin has over 380 different cryptocurrencies and new coins are being added every month.

You can found our Kucoin crypto list here.

Kucoin has much broader altcoin selection than most other exchanges and compared to many other exchanges you can also see Kucoin upcoming listings on their site sometimes more than two hours before.

You can find Kucoin upcoming listings by going to Kucoin site, click “More” in the top menu, choose “News” and then “Token Listing”.

You can see the new cryptos already available on Kucoin below:

Top 25 Kucoin new listings

All prices are in EUR.

You can also find new currencies in Kucoin by going to their “Spotlight” category – category meant for promoting new currencies.

Keep in mind though, while getting in early can result in very nice revenues, new and not well known coins also carry a lot more risk.

Deposits & withdrawals on Kucoin platform

Kucoin offers multiple options for deposits and withdrawals, including credit (or debit) card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and they just recently added the option to deposit fiat from your bank account.

The easiest, and cheapest way to deposit and withdraw on Kucoin is to use cryptocurrencies you have in some other exchange or crypto wallet. Or use the fiat deposit option using your bank account.

How to deposit on Kucoin

Kucoin offers four main deposit options:

1. Deposit cryptocurrency from crypto wallet or another exchange
   
2. Deposit FIAT!
   
3. Fast Buy
   
4. P2P
   
5. Third-party providers

Deposit cryptocurrency

If you already have a crypto wallet where you have cryptos, then the easiest way to deposit to Kucoin platform is depositing cryptocurrencies.

Deposit fiat money in Kucoin

In November 2021 Kucoin annnounced that they are going to start accepting fiat deposits.

You can find that option by following these steps:

• Log in to your account
• Click Assets in the top-right corner
• Choose Main Account (Deposit & Withdraw)
• Choose FIAT
• Choose Payment Method
  

Payment methods for fiat deposits might vary depending on your location.

In Europe there should be at least two options:

• Deposit with bank transfer
• Deposit with credit card
  

Kucoin bank transfer option is free, but the transfer might take up to 1 or 2 working days. Or at least, that’s what they say anyone. Most likely during working days your deposit should arrive on the same day.

Using credit or debit card in Kucoin to fund your account with fiat costs 3%, but you can expect the funds to arrive on your account immediately.

Kucoin Fast Buy

If you want to buy cryptos directly with your credit card (Visa or Mastercard), then that’s the option you want.
Keep in mind though that using this option you are not depositing fiat to your Kucoin account, but buying a cryptocurrency directly with your fiat.

Right now you can use this option to buy 50 different cryptocurrencies.

If your plan is to buy multiple currencies, not just one, we recommend you to initially buy Tether (USDT) stable coin as this currency can then be used to buy pretty much any of the other cryptocurrencies.

Minimum amount for a single transaction is $5 and maximum buy amount is $5000.

Please note that Fast Buy payment fees might not be very low.

P2P – buy and sell cryptos on KuCoin’s peer-to-peer exchange

Another option is to use Kucoin’s peer-to-peer exchange to buy and sell cryptos. Using this option you are trading with another Kucoin user directly. There are variety of payment methods to choose from here – actually more than 20.

Third-party payment providers

You can also use third-party payment providers to buy cryptos directly with credit card or Apple Pay. These payments are done either through Simplex or Banxa payment gateways.

Considering you can use credit card for Fast Buy option as well, it’s unclear why anyone would use a third-party payment provider.

Please note that the minimum deposit when using the third-party providers is 30 USD and maximum 20 000 USD.

How high are Kucoin deposit fees?

Crypto deposits as well as bank transfers in Kucoin are free. However, direct buy deposit fees can be up to 12% easily.  Learn more about Kucoin deposit fees in our Kucoin fees section below.

How to withdraw from Kucoin?

At this point there is one main way of withdrawing assets from Kucoin:

• Withdraw cryptocurrencies
  

Kucoin will be making fiat withdrawals available soon as well. You can find the fiat withdrawal from under your Assets overview by clicking on “Withdraw” button and then choosing “Fiat”. But only after they have launched the fiat withdrawals.

In order to withdraw cryptos from Kucoin, follow the same path, but choose “Crypto” instead of fiat.

How high are Kucoin withdrawal fees?

You can currently withdraw only cryptocurrencies, you can not withdraw anything directly to your bank account.

HOWEVER, Kucoin said in January 2022 that „The withdrawal service of EUR from the KuCoin Fiat Account to IBAN accounts will be available in near future.” (source)

The withdrawal fees for crypto withdrawals vary depending on the cryptocurrency.

For example, Kucoin ETH withdrawal fee is 0.004 ETH, ADA withdrawal fee is 1 ADA. You can find more data about Kucoin withdrawal fees in our fees section.

If you trade on other exchanges as well, you’ll notice that Kucoin USDT withdrawal fee is the same in almost all of them.

How Kucoin works

Kucoin offers a simple interface that allows users to buy, sell, trade, and store a good number of cryptos.

Kucoin offers its users sensible fees and option to trade without verification, although with noteworthy limits.

Traders can trade on Kucoin either by placing their trades themselves or use Kucoin trading bots.

When it comes to crypto wallets, then Kucoin users can store their cryptos in Kucoin exchange, or connect a third party crypto wallet and trade directly with your assets there.

Trading on Kucoin platform

Once you have crypto on your Kucoin account, it’s rather easy to make trades.

Just click on Trade → Spot trades, then click on BTC/USDT in the top-left area and there you can search for the coin you’re looking for.

Futures and margin Trading

You can also use Kucoin margin trading option with up to 100x leverage.

Click on Trade → Margin Trading to start trading.

Margin trading involves A LOT of risk and we suggest you don’t touch it unless you’re already an experienced trader and understand how margin trading works.

Kucoin Trading Bot

If you want to earn passive income while you’re sleeping, you can also use Kucoin Trading bots.

Kucoin has several different trading bots available for you to choose from.

You can also choose the exact trading rules yourself, the rules that your trading bot will follow.

Kucoin trading bot will then trade without your intervention.

Kucoin bots are free to use and they can be very profitable, CAN being the operative word.

So Kucoin trading bot can be very good in helping you make better trades.

But then again, keep in mind that using trading bots is risky and they do not guarantee you any income. They can as well lose you money.

Creating Kucoin account

How to create Kucoin account?

Go to Kucoin website and find the Kucoin Sign Up button in the top right corner or just click the link here.

Once that’s done, choose either Phone or Email from the options below the heading and enter your data.

Whichever option you chose, you now need to click the “Send code” button after which you’ll receive an email or SMS with the account verification code.

We would appreciate if before clicking the Sign Up button you would enter Cryptolorium referral code in the box.

Cryptolotium Kucoin referral code is r3NNF4K

Note that using your Kucoin referral code does not take anything away from you, rather vice versa, sometimes you might actually end up getting a special Cryptolorium Kucoin bonus.

Hit the sign-up button and your account has been created!

Be sure to set up a two-step authentication as well as security questions for your account now, just to make sure your account is as safe as possible.

While you don’t need to go through Kucoin KYC verification process in order to deposit, withdraw, or trade, we do recommend you do that straight away as well as this will only improve your account security as well as increase your account limits.

Kucoin KYC – how to verify your Kucoin account?

You will find the Kucoin verification link by logging into your account, click on your avatar found in the too right corner and choosing “KYC verification”.

From there choose “Individual verification”.

Kucoin offers different verification levels.

Basic verification

Basic verification asks for you full name, country of residence, and your ID number.

Advanced verification

Here you need to provide Kucoin a copy of your ID. It can be either ID Card, passport, or driver’s license.
They will also ask for another selfie with you, holding your ID card and handwritten note with a code, current date, and your signature.

Kucoin verification for US residents

At this point people from the United States can not go through the Kucoin verification process and they can use Kucoin without KYC.

How long does Kucoin account verification take?

Kucoin account verification process will take you only a few minutes, but it can take up to couple of days for Kucoin team to approve it.

Why and when should you verify your Kucoin account?

We recommend you complete your Kucoin account verification right after creating your account.

It will help you regain access to your account in case of lost access and it will also increase your daily limits.

Additionally, verified users will also be able to buy crypto for fiat as well as deposit fiat. 

Trading on Kucoin without KYC is possible, but Kucoin deposit options without KYC are limited and should you lose access to your account, trading on Kucoin without KYC, then it’s pretty difficult for you to prove who you are and regain access to your account.

Kucoin app

Kucoin mobile app is available for both iOS and Android devices and make it possible to buy, sell, and trade on the go.

Kucoin Fees – how high are Kucoin exchange fees?

Kucoin fees depend on whether we are talking about depositing, withdrawing, or trading.

We talked about Kucoin payments fees already, but let’s go through Kucoin deposit and withdrawal fees once again and then talk about Kucoin trading fees as well.

Kucoin fees for Fast Buy are quite high since you don’t actually deposit fiat, but you are using third-party providers to use fiat on your card to buy cryptos directly.

And those fees can be as high as 12-13% easily. So...very, very high.

However, if we talk about Kucoin cryptocurrency trading fees, then those are very low and comparable to the cheapest cryptocurrency exchanges out there.

Kucoin base trading fee is just 0.1% which can be brought down immediately to 0.08% by paying trading fees for Kucoin Token (KCS).

Kucoin fiat deposit fees

• Kucoin fiat deposit fee using SEPA transfer option is FREE
• Kucoin fiat deposit fee ysing credit or debit card is 3%
• Kucoin Fast Buy fee can be anywhere between 3% and 13%
  

Kucoin crypto withdrawal fees

Kucoin crypto withdrawal fees depend on the cryptocurrency. You can find the exact fees for all cryptos on their platform, but here's just a quick overview for you.

Crypto	Withdrawal fee	Minimum Kucoin withdrawal limit
Bitcoin (BTC)	0.0005 BTC	0.001 BTC
Ethereum (ETH)	0.004 ETH	0.01 ETH
Tether (USDT)	1 USDT	2 USDT
Ripple (XRP)	0.1 XRP	20.1 XRP
Cardano (ADA)	1 ADA	2 ADA

Kucoin trading fees

Kucoin trading fees depend on your trading volume and there are 12 trading fee levels.

The base, or first level, is 0.1% Taker and 0.1% Maker fee, both of which can be brought 20% lower if you use Kucoin Token (KCS) to pay the fees.

How do Kucoin fees compare with other crypto platforms?

Kucoin fees are pretty much as low as the fees on the cheapest cryptocurrency exchanges.

Kucoin Earn products

Kucoin offers its user multuple ways of earning free crypto from their holdings.

Earn KCS daily

KCS coin is Kucoin’s own crypto token and every user, who holds more than 6 KuCoin Token (KCS), can earn daily passive income from their holdings.

Additionally, holders of Kucoin Token holders also benefit from lower trading fees.

So holding KCS token is definitely useful on Kucoin exchange.

Crypto lending – how does Kucoin lending work?

Another way to earn free crypto on Kucoin is to lend it out to other users on Kucoin platform.

Crypto lending on Kucoin is fairly simple and at the time of writing there were more than 120 cryptocurrencies that you can lend out on Kucoin.

You can lend your crypto out for 7, 14, or 28 days, and you can choose the interest rate yourself. But default Kucoin lending rates vary a lot.

Obviously, if there are many offers for 0.003% daily interest rates and you set your interest rate to 1%, then it’s very unlikely anyone would borrow from you.

But the good thing is that you can always see the offers of other users as well and set your rate accordingly.

Kucoin Earn / Kucoin staking options

Kucoin Earn is basically Kucoin staking section that offers you the opportunity to stake your coin and earn interest from staking.

Depending on the coin, you can earn up to 100% APR or more. Although normally the APR is lower and you can stake only for a limited period.

Kucoin Win

Kucoin Earn has sort of a lottery section as well, where you buy a ticket and you have 1/10 chance of winning back 9x the cost of the lottery/raffle ticket.

Spotlight!

You can also participate in new token sales. This gives you the option to get the tokens at a fixed price.

However, it’s not as easy as that.

In order to participate you usually need to hold at least 100 KCS coins and subscribe to the sale.

However, how much of your subscribed amount you can actually for the coin for depends on the multiple factors.

And most commonly it’s calculated like this: (User’s KCS holdings / Total KCS holdings of all participants) * Total Spotlight Allocation (of the new coin)  

Can you lose money with Kucoin Earn products?

Dealing with cryptocurrencies, there are always risks involved. But when we talk about staking of lending, they are quite safe in terms of getting your staked coins back.

When it comes to Kucoin Win, the mathematical odds of losing is 90%.

When it comes to Spotlight products, then sometimes the price of the coin can gain a lot right after it becomes available. But at the same time, it can go down fast as well.

It’s a crypto, after all.

Kucoin customer support

Kucoin customer service can help you through multiple channel such as

• Onsite chat (bot plus live CS). Note that Kucoin live chat support might not be the fastest way to talk to them.
  
• Mobile app support
• Additionally, Kucoin has a very extensive FAQ section where most questions have already been answered.

Kucoin is also present in social media and other mediums:

Facebook - http://facebook.com/KuCoinOfficial

Telegram - https://t.me/Kucoin_Exchange

Twitter - https://twitter.com/KuCoinCom

Reddit - http://reddit.com/r/kucoin

YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/KuCoinCryptocurrencyExchange

Medium - https://www.medium.com/kucoinexchange

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/kucoinexchange/​

In most cases Kucoin customer support should be able to answer you within couple of hours at most.

Pros and cons of using Kucoin

Pros	Cons
Low trading fees  (0.1%)	Direct Buy fees can be high (3%-12%)
Trading fee discounts if you pay with KCS	Fiat withdrawal not YET available
Great altcoin selection	Not licensed in the United States
Mobile app for Android and iOS
Deposit fiat option
Option to buy crypto directly with fiat
No KYC verification required (although very much recommended)
You can earn free crypto through Kucoin Earn products
Trading bot
Accessible in more than 200 countries
Accessible in the United States
Good security

Questions you might have about Kucoin

What else might you want to know about Kucoin?

Kucoin withdrawal issues – what to do if I have a problem with withdrawal?

If your withdrawal request shows as "in progress" or "Processing" for hours, we recommend you contact Kucoin customer service.

When contacting them, be sure to include the following information:

1. Your UID/Registered email address/Registered phone number:
   
2. The type(s) and amount(s) of coin(s):
   
3. The recipient's address:
   

Kucoin - where is my deposit??

In most cases, your deposits to Kucoin will arrive within an hour. But that depends on the coin you’re depositing and exchange you’re depositing from. If the deposit does not arrive, you need to first contact the wallet provider or exchange you made the deposit from.

If you deposited in Kucoin using one of their direct buy options, we recommend you to contact Kucoin support immediately.

Can you withdraw from Kucoin to bank account?

Right now it is not possible to withdraw fiat money to your bank account.

HOWEVER, this option should become available soon.

Conclusion – what do we think about Kucoin exchange?

Kucoin is a big exchange with a great selection of cryptos. And that’s especially important if you’re interested in lesser known altcoins. Their impressive selection of available coins is also one of the reasons why Kucoin is a popular cryptocurrency exchange used by traders and hodlers around the world.

Kucoin platform interface can look intimidated to new users at first, but by the end of the day, we have found it rather straight-forward. You just need to spent a few minutes to get used to it.

Kucoin’s fees are low when it comes to crypto to crypto trading and there are no fees when buying or selling cryptocurrencies on their P2P marketplace.

It is also possible to make fiat deposit using SEPA transfers and these are free. Fiat deposits with credit card incur a 3% fee.

Additionally you can buy crypto for fiat directly, but the conversion fees here can be quite high, maybe even as high as 3% to 13% depending on the chosen payment method and … time of day. So it would be make sense not to use that option much. 

All in one – Kucoin is a cryptocurrency exchange we like and while it does have some negative points as well, we have a lot more positive things to say about Kucoin exchange.