Kucoin is the new kid on the block. Kucoin V1.0 went live in August 2017. Its age is a red flag for some and it was first released in Hong Kong amidst China’s banning and crackdowns companies involved in cryptocurrency. These are a just two of the reasons to feel trepidation but in just a short time Kucoin gained a considerable chunk of the crypto market – and it is boldly revolutionary. But the question remains: is Kucoin legit? This Kucoin review would clear that up.

In order to answer this burning question, Kucoin should pass the following guidelines for:

Legality

Safety

Stability

Competitiveness

Efficiency

This means that Kucoin needs to shatter all red flags and doubts about their platform. Size, popularity, and crypto market dominance doesn’t always equate profits in cryptocurrency. In the short history of cryptocurrency, there had been notable incidents of fraud, collapse, hacking, and asset mismanagement. This does not include the inherent risks of the industry.

So how does Kucoin stack up? We’ll find out in this Kucoin review.

Kucoin Operation: The Foreign Crypto Market Loophole

There had been an increasing number of governments that are passing more stringent laws to regulate ICOs. Even in the US, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced that it will address the issue of cryptocurrency regulation. Regulations like these are two-edged swords that on one hand ensure the security of investments but on the other hand, it can also remove the unique appeal of cryptocurrencies especially in terms of privacy. The issue mostly resides on the lack of international standards regarding cryptocurrency exchanges and blockchain technology innovations.

This is where people have reservations about Kucoin. A majority of Kucoin reviews and forum discussions center around Kucoin’s Hong Kong location and the legalese surrounding its operation. China banned unapproved domestic cryptocurrency activities including new ICOs. Cryptocurrency essentially undermines Chinese government’s control of the economy since cryptocurrency activities are beyond their power. Therefore, the Chinese government isn’t totally against these activities, they are more concerned on how the blockchain technology, in general, can be used to influence the economy, place risks on Chinese citizens, and facilitate illegal activities. China is actually interested in creating a “blockchain ecosystem” that can be used by the government.

Kucoin’s business strategy exploits loopholes in China’s regulations. The Chinese government had recently released new regulations that block any foreign exchanges initiated by their citizens. Kucoin is confident that they can survive any cryptocurrency regulation because they only cater to foreign customers. The risk of closure seems unlikely even with recent crackdowns as blockchain startups continue to make waves in China. Even Chinese industry giant Alibaba and Tencent are looking into developing blockchain capabilities to further explore enhancements for their services.

Kucoin Safety: Multiple Levels of Security

A lot of people fear that Kucoin would be another Binance, but not in a positive way. Just like Kucoin, Binance is based in Hong Kong. Binance recently halted trading, citing the need for system upgrades. A lot of investors feared that there’s something more behind the stoppage with some fearing for the worse. Hacking and denial of service (DDoS) attacks are two of the most common safety breaches in cryptocurrency exchanges and it can cause drastic fluctuations in cryptocurrency prices or even shutdown of the cryptocurrency exchange platform. Though a lot of platforms are prone to these attacks, Binance customers feared that this is the case, sparking withdrawals from the platform.

The lack of transparency often drives customers to question the capacity of the platform to safeguard their investments. Kucoin has two advantages with safety: multi-leveled security system and internal risk control.

Amazon Web Services Cloud is used to build the private network framework that stores micro-withdrawal wallets. Aside from that, the wallets also have multilayered encryption at an industry-level. Macro wallets are stored in banks. All data handling, in general, are secured and encrypted with bank-level security.

Kucoin has departments that tackle internal risk control and operational processes. Just like in banks, the departments follow strict protocols and multi-level transaction reviews. There are more technical aspects of this matter but this Kucoin review would mostly focus on establishing Kucoin exchange’s legitimacy especially in the context of its operation.

Kucoin Stability: Helmed by an Experienced Team

There’s no way to predict if an exchange platform is on the verge of implosion. Even seasoned cryptocurrency enthusiasts are surprised by some high-profile shutdowns in the past months. These shutdowns had put newcomers like Kucoin exchange under close scrutiny. The question had always been stability and survival in the long-run. More than financial stability, Kucoin exchange should prove that it has a stable operational structure.

Even before Kucoin’s launch in 2017, its founding team was working together since 2011. They were first involved in a research on blockchain and related technologies. Kucoin’s technical framework only came into being in 2013 and it took a couple more years before they perfected the cryptocurrency exchange platform’s features and processes.

These team members are passionate about digital currency, especially the blockchain technology. Their backgrounds include leadership roles in top finance and tech industry giants. Kucoin’s CEO, Michael Gan used to work for Ant Financial as a technical expert. Eric Don, the COO used to be the CTO and senior partner of Youling, Fengzheng Lianxian, Ruiyun Wulian and several other IT companies. The CTO, Top Lan, designed and worked on the deployment of Kucoin’s trading system. He’s the technical expert in the Open Source Community. Other members of the Kucoin exchange team also have similar backgrounds, mostly in the internet and IT-related industries.

Kucoin also has a team of consultants and financial stability experts. They secure the platform’s financial system through multi-approach precautions like using three banking centers. These finance experts are also the same team that designed the multilayered financial system that inspired the core exchanging system.

Therefore, the people behind Kucoin have insider knowledge on how cryptocurrency exchange platforms work and how its operation can be sustained.

Kucoin Competitiveness: Dividends and Competitive Rates

Kucoin exchange supports both popular and unique altcoins off the bat. A majority of their 70 tradable coins have low market caps. Some Kucoin reviews question the decision to hold more controversial currencies, but they consider Kucoin’s decision to use crypto-to-crypto currency exchange instead of crypto-to-fiat currency as smart (this somehow polarizes Kucoin reviewers). Kucoin exchange is also building a reputation of offering new trading coin pairs before other cryptocurrency exchange platforms.

Kucoin has one of the lowest trading and withdrawal fees. Trading fees can go as low as 0.1 percent of the assets purchased. There are no deposit fees and there are cryptocurrencies with free withdrawals.

Aside from this, Kucoin also has a native trading token, Kucoin Shares (KCS). KCS tokens are standard ERC-20 tokens based on the Ethereum blockchain. It currently holds an approximate value of US$0.50 with a circulating supply of 100 million tokens at any given time. Kucoin redistributes about 50 percent of their daily trading fee earnings through the KCS Bonus and 40 percent through the referral program.

The KCS Bonus system sees users that hold KCS tokens worth US$1000 receive about US$0.15 daily. The more shares that users hold, the more bonus/dividend share they receive. Kucoin would conduct daily accounting of the KCS Bonus that token holders can receive and load the said bonus directly to the user’s account in the corresponding currency used in the trading transactions. The referral program, on the other hand, enables users to earn more by making referrals and earning a percentage of the invitees trading fees. The more referrals, the more invitation bonus earned. Kocoin exchange reviews immediately pointed out how the referral system (especially with the infographic released by Kucoin exchange) looks very similar to a pyramiding scheme. The similarities end there though. What these Kucoin reviews failed to address is that there are no initial investments involved in the program. All parties involve benefit equally – the users more than Kucoin exchange itself.

The KCS token system is considered as a sound investment, providing a steady passive income opportunity. The KCS token payouts are bound to increase as Kucoin users increase and more trading fees are collected.

Kucoin Efficiency: Intuitive and Fast

Traders that coming from other cryptocurrency exchange platforms will be surprised on the intuitiveness of the Kucoin’s platform. Processes from registration to withdrawal are all straightforward. Only an email address is required for registration. There’s an added layer of protection with the Google 2FA Registration.

There is support for many currency trading pairs that users can register before starting the trading process. Withdrawals are processed within seconds to a few minutes. There is a 24/7 customer service hotline, website, and email support. KuCoin is also highly visible in social media.

A lot of cryptocurrency exchange platforms suffer from bugs and other currency exchange process shortcomings. These bugs and less-than-stellar performance often leave customers frustrated. So far, Kucoin’s operation only experienced minor issues since its launch.

The cryptocurrency exchange platform’s technical performance is backed by a highly-efficient memory-matching technology at the core of its trading engine. This technology is hardware-accelerated with a peak order-making value of more than 2 million per second and a peak order-processing value of more than one million per second. The technology is basically more than a hundred times faster than the average industry standards. There are no lags, no delays.

Kucoin review Conclusion

The main caveat about Kucoin is its age. Its popularity also makes people wary of its legitimacy. A lot of Kucoin reviews from users center on the fear that a simple glitch can be something more. It’s the same with other cryptocurrency exchange platforms. So far, KuCoin’s

But isn’t there really anything that people should be worried about Kucoin? These are key takeaways that shatter the red flags:

There are clear details on how Kucoin operates. The people that operate Kucoin aren’t anonymous. The company and contact information are accessible. The product/service is functioning. The product/service is safe and easy to use. The platform’s structure does not manipulate the processes for its own profit. The users receive profits.

The conclusion: Kucoin is legit.