The People’s Exchange

With the explosion of interest in crypto showing no signs of abating we continue to see new exchanges pop-up like pretender kings of Westeros. Amidst all these new exchanges, centralized and decentralized, we decided to take a closer look at one of the more interesting newcomers, Kucoin. Let’s start with the basics shall we? Kucoin was launched in 2017 with the goal of becoming the “hottest” exchange by 2019. Founded by a ‘dream team’ this group of blockchain afficionados already built their reputations at giants such as GF Securities, Ant Financial, Youling, Jianbang Communication, and iBOX PAY.

Based out of Hong Kong one of the most interesting aspects of Kucoin is their profit sharing scheme through their ERC20 token Kucoin Share (KCS). By owning, and holding KCS on Kucoin, you can recieve a bonus based on 50% of their daily overall trading fee revenue. The more KCS you own, the larger your daily bonus. Not a bad way to incentivize the HODL and trading of KCS, huh? We will go into more details about KCS later in this review.

Kucoin is available to users worldwide and offers a load of trading pairs such as LTC/BTC, BTC/DASH, BTC/NEO, BTC/ETH, BTC/KCS, BTC/RPX, etc. As of this article Kucoin has a 24 hour volume of 75 million USD and is ranked 25th amongst other exchanges. So what is it that makes Kucoin special?

Kucoin Exchange Overview

OK so enough of the background history of Kucoin, let’s get to the meat of the issue. How is the user exeprience and interface? UX and UIs vary wildly between exchanges but it is the most imporant feature if the exchange hopes to have long term success and retain users.

The homepage takes a few cues from Binance regarding its structure, but that’s the limit of their similarities. I personally prefer Kucoins use of a softer, and easier to read color tones. The registration process is the first step any user confronts when joining a new exchange and Kucoin get’s it right. A simple and quick three step process that takes under 4 minutes is a very welcoming experience.

Like most exchanges you will need to agree to the terms and conditions, provide your email address, confirm that email address, deposit funds to your new Kucoin account and start trading!

Once you have successfully logged into your Kucoin account you will be able to adjust settings, track your assets and manage your rewards (referral and Kucoin bonuses), and trade. We here at Crypto is Coming highly recommend you activate the two factor authentication (2FA).

Markets and Trading View

The Kucoin layout is very clean and consistent througout the website, including the market and trading views. Navigate to the Markets overview screen and you can see the trading pairs available to choose from: BTC, ETH, KCS, NEO, USDT & BCH.

For basic trading click on the Markets tab at the top of the page, select your trading pair, and type in the price and the amount you want to buy (image above). For each trade, KuCoin requires you to enter your Google 2-FA. Unless of course you deactivate this through your settings.

If you want a more detailed view of the market you can click the trading pair (KCS/BTC) which will then take you to the trading screen where you can view the usual candles, order book and buy or sell of the selected currencies.

There are two main things I like about the Kucoin advanced trading screen: 1.) the integrated Tradingview chart and 2). the required 2FA verification in the bottom right corner to activate buying and selling. I use Tradingview.com for my regular TA charting so having a familiar graph when using Kucoin makes it easier to get straight to trading. Regarding the 2FA: Don’t worry you do not have to enter your 2FA code each time you want to trade. Once activated you can buy and sell for 120 minutes before you will have to re-validate. This is an extra security feature I can appreciate.

Many of the key features for Kucoin are obvious only after a few hours of playing with the exchange. The ability to contact automated support 24/7 is a nice (though somewhat limited), it’s simple and straighforward help page anyone can appreciate, the attractive UI, many base trading pairs to choose from, and of course recieving dividends.

Kucoin Fees

The fee for each trade is 0.1% of the asset you bought plus any discount you may get from holding KCS. But don’t get your hopes up, for every 1000 KCS you own you get a 1% discount (hard cap of 30%). At the current price of KCS you would need whooping $5,200 in KCS to receive a 1% discount. Compared to the Binance native coin BNB this is a pitance of a discount. But a discount on trading is not the only feature of KCS (More on that in the next section).

Kucoin Binance Bittrex Note Free Free Fee Trading Fees 0.1% (of asset bought) 0.1% (of asset bought) 0.25% on all trades If you have BNB, you can choose BNB to deduct 50% trading fee?temporary? BTC withdrawals 0.001 BTC 0.001 BTC 0.0005 BTC ETH withdrawals 0.010 ETH 0.010 ETH 0.0060 ETH LTC withdrawals 0.001 LTC 0.010 LTC 0.0100 LTC

Withdrawal fees vary based on the cryptocurrency being withdrawn. Some cryptocurrency have no withdrawal fees such as NEO and GAS and others have very low fees such as LTC. You can find the comprehensive list of Kucoin cryptocurrency withdrawal fees here. Compared to Binance the fees are very similar. (*Quick note if you hold NEO on Kucoin you will receive GAS)

To deposit and withdraw go to Assets screen and select the cryptocurrency you wish to transact, click confirm to recieve your withdrawal address or if depositing type in the required information.

Kucoin Shares and passive income

Everybody loves passive income. You’d have to be a fool to pass up on dividends if you owned stocks, why would you pass up on Kucoin Share payouts? The concept is simple: Buy and HODL KCS, receive a daily bonus in the form of KCS, rinse and repeat. The more KCS you own, the greater your daily bonus.

There is a catch (isn’t there always?): The bonus is based on 50% fees collected from said traded coin which makes it highly dependent on volume. But if Kucoin is aiming to be the “hottest” exchange by 2019 who cares right? Right??? OK moving on.

Let’s use an example to put some numbers behind the dividend. User Crypto_Tyrion HODL 1,960 KCS in his account on Kucoin. The daily volume as of this post is 5,600 BTC ($75 million), according to the current fee rate (0.2%), Crypto_Tyrion would recieve the equivalent of $1.46 daily in KCS. The bonus is distributed at 0:00 +8UTC daily over a period of several hours and is calculated by the amount of KCS you hodl.

There is a convenient website that calculates your daily coin bonus based on how many KCS you own (because who wants to do maths themselves?). Click this link, type in the amount of KCS you own and let the good times roll!

Summary

Trying to be the hottest cryptocurrency exchange by 2019 is a very bold and audacious goal. Currently ranked at 25th in terms of 24hr volume, Kucoin has a ways to go. But with a great user interface and experience, good security, low trading fees and incentives for trading and holding KCS who is to say Kucoin can’t top the exchange mountain by 2019.

Let’s not forget that Kucoin also benefited when other exchanges shuttered their doors to new accounts due to a lack of scalability. Kucoin didn’t, which makes it a great choice for new and experienced users alike. Register for Kucoin here. If you are curious about exchanges check out our comprehensive guide here.

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