Kucoin is a cryptocurrency exchange that provides millions of users with an easy way to exchange more than 434 cryptocurrencies. The exchange was created by a group of 7 founders, each with their own unique skillset. Since itsinception, KuCoin has grown to become more than just an exchange with the creation of the KuGroup in March 2020.
We will talk about all this and more in this practical review where I will provide you with all of the informationnecessary to start your crypto journey today on the KuCoin exchange.
After reading this guide, you will know about everything that you can do on this exchange and what to expect from account creation, KYC, support speed/quality and more.
We will also talk about creating corporate accounts, depositing and withdrawing both fiat and crypto, and all of the guidelines for listing your coin on this exchange.
If you want to skip to a particular section, just click on one of the links in the table of contents below to get there.
Table of Content
- KuCoin Exchange Review Contents
- KuCoin - History and Founders
- The Founders
- What is KuCoin Exchange and How It Works
- Creating an Account on KuCoin
- Creating a Corporate Account
- Fiat Currency Trading, Deposits, and Withdrawals
- Depositing Coins/Tokens on KuCoin Crypto Exchange
- Transaction Fees
- Trading Fees
- Withdrawing Funds
- How to Trade on KuCoin Exchange
- Spot Trading on KuCoin
- Make your first trade on KuCoin Spot Exchange
- Limit Order
- Market Order
- Stop Limit Order
- Stop Market Order
- Futures Trading
- Margin trading on KuCoin Exchange
- Pool-X
- KuCoin Exchange App
- Using the iPhone KuCoin Exchange App
- Is KuCoin Exchange a Secure Platform?
- How to List on KuCoin
- Customer Service
- Regulation Supervision
- Conclusion
1. KuCoin - History and Founders
KuCoin is a relative newcomer to the cryptocurrency exchange space. Originally its headquarters were located in Singapore but now it is operated from Seychelles. It was founded in September 2017, by seven individuals, each with their own skillset. This group managed to rapidly grow and improve the exchange, earning the trust and loyalty of many cryptocurrency users.
Most of the co-founders are mysterious and information about them is difficult to come by on the western English-based internet, with some of them seemingly disappearing completely from the KuCoin picture. Regardless of the way the story of the founders developed, today KuCoin is a cryptocurrency exchange that supports 400 cryptocurrencies and employs more than 100 people.
It provides traders around the globe with the ability to trade on their spot, margin, and futures exchanges (and more) through the same platform.
Even though the KuCoin Exchange launched for cryptocurrency trading late compared to other exchanges, it has since grown to overcome their competitors through superior service and unique features.
KuCoin is known for its security and stability, traits that have made the exchange increasingly popular since its inception. The cryptocurrency exchange operates to provide millions of cryptocurrency traders with a streamlined and easy to access marketplace for buying and selling crypto and is one of the handful of exchanges that haven’t experienced a hack or loss to theft.
From March 13th, 2020 Kucoin operates under the umbrella of KuGroup, a business unit that was created to manage the operations of the exchange and other interests of the original founders.
The self-proclaimed “People’s Exchange” has more than 5 million registered users in over 100 countries, has processed more than 630 million individual trades and accumulated more than 67 billion USD in total transaction volume.
The exchange is dedicated to the development of local communities around their products with an active local presence in 17 countries, i.e. approximately 129,200 community members.
In November 2018, “The People’s Exchange” partnered with IDG Capital and Matrix Partners, accepting a $20 mil USD investment. This represented a stepping stone along their path, which enabled them to streamline the partnership with Simplex and Banxa and provide credit and debit card purchases on their platform.
The Founders
Michael Gan, Founder & Chairman at KuGroup
Before founding KuCoin Exchange Michael was working with the Alibaba Group, KF5.com, and MikeCRM.com in a variety of technical capacities. He started as a full-stack developer, then CTO, and finally a technical expert consulting on development for the Alibaba Group
Johnny Lyu, Co-founder & CEO at KuCoin
His experience as a senior internet researcher and systems architect made him extremely valuable for KuCoin in the beginning. He brought his experience in the internet industry from Youlin.com, KITEME, and REINIOT to createthe foundation of the KuCoin Exchange that we can use today. Unfortunately, we were unable to locate him on LinkedIn.
2. What is KuCoin Exchange and How It Works
KuCoin offers a wide variety of options to the user. Not just an exchange, KuCoin is comparable to an entire ecosystem. Starting from the usual and expected spot exchange, all the way to lending. Beyond KuCoin to the KuGroup, a wide variety of products and services are available for users, developers and enterprises.
On the KuCoin Exchange you can participate in:
- Spot Exchange
- Futures Exchange
- Margin Exchange
- Instant Exchange
- OTC Desk
- Credit Card Purchases
- Lending Program
- Pool-X Staking and Proof-of-Liquidity (POL) mining
- Soft Staking
- KuCoin Bonuses and Referrals
There are many features available on the KuCoin platform which can make the prospect of creating and maintaining anaccount seem incredibly difficult or overwhelming, but that can’t be further from the truth, as you will see in the next section of this guide.
Creating an Account on KuCoin
Creating an account with KuCoin Exchange is fast and simple. From the official website, you need to select “Sign Up” on the top right corner. On the next screen, you have the option to create an account with an email or a phone number.
Phone verification is limited to only a little less than two dozen countries, while email verification isexactly what you would expect from an account creation process. Enter your email, and click on “Send Code”. This will send a temporary code to your email that needs to be entered on the same screen. Enter your password, and click “Sign Up”. Your account has been created.
Account verification (KYC)
https://kucoin.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360015102254-About-KYC-Verification
Once you are logged in your account, you can hover over your avatar to find the “KYC Verification” options which will allow you to verify your account with your identity and enjoy higher withdrawal limits. With no verification, you can only withdraw up to 1400 USDT per day. With Individual verification, this limit goes up to 100 BTC per day, and with institutional verification, the limit is 500 BTC per day (more on this later).
To start the process, click on “Start Verification” and upload your information on the next screen. You can use an ID, Driver’s License or Passport to verify your identity with KuCoin.
In this first step of verification, there is no requirement for any photographs, document scanning, or uploading of files. You just choose your country, enter your details and document number and you are done!
Now you can withdraw and trade more. If you need even higher volumes, you can go further with the verification and provide a scan of the front and back of your document, together with a photograph of yourself holding your ID and a paper with your unique code provided by KuCoin together with the current date at the time of verifying your account.
All of this is clearly explained on the next page in the process, so don’t worry if it seems complicated at this moment.
Creating a Corporate Account
https://kucoin.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360015102254-About-KYC-Verification
Creating a corporate account with KuCoin is just as easy as creating an individual account. The difference is in the KYC verification methods implemented to classify your account as an institutional i.e. corporate account.
As a corporate user, you will be able to withdraw more from the exchange, enjoy higher trading limits and leverage for futures contracts.
Before you start, it’s best to get prepared. Here’s all of the information that you are going to need during the corporate KYC verification process:
- Corporation Information
- Name
- Code
- Tax Identification Number
- Source of Investment Fund
- Transaction Volume
- Company Director
- Company Registry Information
- Corporation Registration Address
- State/Province/City
- Street Address/Building Number
- Company Office Information
- Corporation Office Location
- State/Province/City
- Street Address/Building Number
- Corporation Documents
- Company Registration Certificate
- Business Registration Certificate
- Photo with handheld Company Registration Certificate and dynamic code*
- List of Board Members
- Contact information for the Registrant
*Dynamic code is provided on the verification page and is changed daily.
With all of the above information prepared, you are ready to start the process. Access the “KYC Verification” option on the homepage (after logging in) by hovering on the user avatar in the top right.
Once the next screen is open, select “Switch to Institutional Verification”.
Click on the “Start Verification” button.
This process can take a long time and you can expect additional questions and requests from the exchange as they are working to verify your business and uphold their AML requirements.
Fiat Currency Trading, Deposits, and Withdrawals
KuCoin does not support fiat trading, deposits, and withdrawals of any kind through the use of a bank account. You are only able to buy cryptocurrency with a debit or credit card.
The exception to this rule are OTC merchants, entities authorized by KuCoin to buy and sell cryptocurrencies through a variety of different payment systems including credit cards, WeChat, Alipay, and a bank account, on their platform.
If you are interested in becoming an OTC merchant on KuCoin, they have a specialized application process which you can find here.
Debit and Credit Card Transactions on KuCoin
https://kucoin.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360015207673-How-to-Buy-Coins-by-Credit-or-Debit-Cards-
Buying cryptocurrency with a debit or credit card on Kucoin is powered by Simplex and Banxa, and most recently PayMir. All of them are reputable fintech companies that collaborate with crypto businesses to provide them with an easy to use fraud-proof payment system for debit and credit cards.
While it is one of the easiest ways to quickly get access to cryptocurrency, you can expect to pay a premium for this type of service. The prices of the actual assets are fairly based on the current market prices, but you are going to be charged 3.5% as a service fee. The fees for the transaction presented in the image above were $339.44 USD.
Compared to the usual trading fees across exchanges (less than 1%) buying cryptocurrency with a credit or debit card is fast, but not ideal.
Buying cryptocurrency with a credit and debit card is not possible from everywhere. Sanctioned countries (such as Iraq, North Korea, Syria, Afghanistan, Lybia), or residents of any of the following six US-states: New York, Connecticut, Washington, New Mexico, Georgia and Hawaii, cannot use this method to buy cryptocurrency with Simplex.
Depositing Coins/Tokens on KuCoin Crypto Exchange
https://kucoin.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360014897953-How-to-Deposit-Coins-into-KuCoin-
Making a cryptocurrency deposit on KuCoin is easy. To start the process, navigate to the “Assets” tab on the homepage after you’ve logged in. From here, select the “Main Account”, which will open up a list of all of the assets that you can trade on the exchange.
Navigate this section by using the search feature located to the right of the estimated value of your portfolio to find your chosen cryptocurrency quickly and efficiently.
Once you find your cryptocurrency, locate the “Deposit” text on the right side of the webpage. Clicking on this text will open up a window that contains your own personal deposit address. Any cryptocurrency of the desired type sent to this address will be added to your portfolio balance.
Make sure to send only the cryptocurrency you have selected. If you’ve selected BTC, you cannot use this address for any other cryptocurrency. In case you do, your deposit will be forfeit and will not be able to be recovered.
Fortunately, many wallets will not process your transactions in the event of a mistake and display an error. In cases like these, it’s better to be safe than sorry, so make sure to check that your coins are of the desired type and that they are going to the correct address.
Transaction Fees
https://kucoin.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360014898013-How-to-Make-a-Withdrawal-on-KuCoin-
There are no hidden fees associated with depositing cryptocurrency on KuCoin, apart from the usual transaction fees that you pay for your transaction. Withdrawing funds is subject to a static fee unique to the cryptocurrency you have chosen.
In the case of Bitcoin, this fee is 0.0004 BTC per withdrawal, which is enough to cover 16sat/byte, which is usually enough to receive your crypto in the first block. In times of increased activity, the lack of an “urgent fee feature” may result in delays.
Regardless of the fact that the fast transaction feature is missing, you will get fast confirmation times for your transaction. The reason for this is that most cryptocurrency exchanges pool transactions together and pay a single transaction fee for a “one-to-many” transaction.
Transaction fees are paid to miners or stakeholders on the blockchain for the cryptocurrency you are sending. It’s convenient to compare withdrawing to sending yourself cryptocurrency to make more sense of these transaction fees.
7. Trading Fees
https://kucoin.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360015188494-How-are-Fees-Calculated-and-Charged-
KuCoin has a unique system in place to determine trading fees. This is the VIP Trading Fee Level system. Depending on your trading activity over 30 days and the size of your KuCoin Shares (KCS) holdings you are going to be allocated a VIP level. Your VIP level determines the fees that you pay for trading.
There are two types of fees available:
- Paid in one of the cryptocurrency pairs
- Paid in KCS
At the highest possible price, the trading fees are still attractive at 0.1% when paid with crypto, or 0.08 when paid with KCS.
The most interesting part of this trading fee system is the possibility of earning trading fees for every maker trade that you make after VIP level 8. The maker-taker dynamic is common in forex and stock exchanges, but not in cryptocurrency exchanges, making KuCoin a unique cryptocurrency exchange.
KuCoin Shares (KCS)
The proprietary exchange cryptocurrency KCS plays an important role in determining the amount of fees that you are due for each of your trades. Holding KCS on your account will increase your VIP level and provide you with the fees associated with your level.
If you trade a lot, you will reach the next criteria for increasing your VIP level, but investing in KCS is a fast and instant way to increase your VIP level and enjoy lower trading fees as soon as possible.
Instead of paying a “premium” on trading fees, you can start by investing in KCS and trade until you reach the next level.
8. Withdrawing Funds
https://kucoin.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360014898013-How-to-Make-a-Withdrawal-on-KuCoin-
Making a withdrawal with KuCoin Exchange is easy just like everything else.
To start, log into your KuCoin account and hover on the “Assets” tab and click on the “Assets Overview”. On the right side of the webpage, click on “Withdraw”.
If this is your first time attempting a withdraw, you may be asked to activate 2FA and set a trading password, if you haven’t done that already. These are requirements for processing a withdrawal on KuCoin Exchange.
To easily navigate the vast amount of assets you can either hide zero balances or use the search function.
Once you have found the coin/token you want to withdraw, select it and you will be taken to a screen where you can add your wallet address. Depending on the cryptocurrency, this address will be different and may contain additional pieces of information.
After you have added your address, type in the amount you want to withdraw. On the same screen, you can also review the fees that will be charged for the withdrawal. Press “Confirm” to process the transaction.
Some common errors that are experienced during this step are “Balance insufficient” and “Address contains invalid or sensitive information”. To fix the first issue, ensure that your cryptocurrency is on your main account, and not on your trading account. You can do this by using the “Transfer” function instead of “Withdraw”.
Note: Every KuCoin Exchange account has a Main, Trading, Margin, and Futures account from the moment you sign up.
For the second issue, ensure that your address is correct and that it belongs to the desired blockchain. This error appears when an address is invalid or incompatible.To finalize your transaction, you will need to provide three additional pieces of information:
- Trading Password
- Email Verification Code
- 2FA Verification (or SMS Verification) Code
For the trading password, type in the six digit pin code that you setup when you first opened the withdraw function.
For the Email Verification Code, press on “Send Code” and go to your inbox. If you can’t see it in your usual inbox, check the spam folder.
Lastly, input the 2FA or SMS code (depending on what you activated) in the last field.
With these pieces of information in place, you are now ready to finalize the transaction.
Withdrawals are usually processed within 30 minutes.
Once initiated and complete, withdrawals cannot be cancelled, so make sure to double-check the receiving address.
Note: There are cases of individuals getting infected with malware that secretly changes the receiving address in the clipboard, making the user inadvertently send funds to the malware developers. Double-checking your address is a great way to avoid accidental loss of assets.
Withdrawal fees on KuCoin are not the same for each type of token. Ensure that you are paying a fair price on the withdrawal overview before you initiate your transaction.
Lastly, if you are reusing a single address often, you have the ability to add this address as a quickly accessible choice in the withdrawal panel. To add an address for easy access, click on the arrow on the right side of the “Wallet Address” field, and select “Add usual address”.
Type an arbitrary name to easily identify the address and the actual address and click submit.
To finalize the process, you will be asked to provide your trading password, email verification code, and 2FA/SMS verification code, just like before.
Input them and press “Submit” to complete the process.
9. How to Trade on KuCoin Exchange
https://kucoin.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360015207073-How-to-Make-a-Trade-on-KuCoin
Before we get into the specifics of trading on Kucoin, we first need to take some time and understand how the internal accounts for every user work. There are three main types of trading available on the KuCoin Exchange Spot, Margin, and Futures, and your Main Account, used for deposits and withdrawals.
If you wanted to use the margin trading part of the exchange, you will need to transfer assets from your main account to your margin account.
Here’s a graph simplifying the process.
Main Account
This is your main account where you will find your assets once you have deposited them to the exchange. From here you are required to transfer the account to one of the other three types of accounts before you can start trading. Features will usually have an easy way to tell you where you should put your assets in order to use them. The website also has a lot of transfer buttons to help you with this.
https://kucoin.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360014826214-Main-Account-and-Trading-Account
Trading Account
If you are interested in spot trading, this is the account where you should transfer your assets. Some traders find it helpful to transfer their profits out of this account and into the main one, to keep things transparent for themselves.
You can withdraw your profits only from the main account.
https://kucoin.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360014826214-Main-Account-and-Trading-Account
Margin Account
If you want to use leverage on your trades, KuCoin requires that you transfer assets to this account beforehand. It provides an easy way to separate your trading assets from the margin assets keeping your portfolio organized and your risks managed.
Futures Account
The futures account is used to fuel your participation in the BTC futures contracts available on KuCoin. Similarly to the margin account, KuCoin requires that you transfer assets to this account before it will allow you to take part in the futures contracts.
https://kucoin.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360026120733-What-is-Futures-
How to transfer assets between KuCoin accounts?
https://kucoin.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360020818314-How-to-Transfer-Between-Internal-Accounts
Transferring assets to and from the Trading account is easy and simple. In your assets panel, you always have the option to transfer your assets.
To execute the transfer, select the “Transfer” option on the receiving account.
Select the sending account, the asset type, and the quantity you want to transfer and press confirm to finalize the transaction.
10. Spot Trading on KuCoin
https://kucoin.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360039685553-A-Tutorial-on-KuCoin-Spot-Trading
Spot trading, assuming the context of crypto represents the process of buying or selling a cryptocurrency for instant delivery on a specified date. Spot in the context of trading refers to the current price of a cryptocurrency at the time of trading. This is the most common type of trading, and a minimum requirement for a cryptocurrency exchange to be classified as an exchange.
Therefore, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that KuCoin Exchange has spot trading available for its users at any time, 24/7. Spot trading happens in trading pairs, much like it does in the forex markets.
One crypto is the base, and the other is the quote currency.
Starting to trade on KuCoin Exchange, requires that you first create an account. If you haven’t done that already, go ahead and do this now. We’ve already covered the account creation process in this guide, which you can find above.
Once your account has been created, you need to connect your account to a phone number or 2FA authenticator, as well as set your own six-digit trading password. This was covered above in the section about withdrawing funds.
Once that is complete you can start to trade on the spot exchange.
Make your first trade on KuCoin Spot Exchange
https://kucoin.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360015207073-How-to-Make-a-Trade-on-KuCoin
To get started, log in to the website with your account, navigate to Trade, and click on “Spot”.
You will be taken to the main interface for trading. From there, you can select whatever currency pair you want to explore and the appropriate charts will be activated. On the chart, you can see the market depth and current prices. You also have access to technical analysis tools that can be used to discover patterns in the market and predict your next move.
By default, Kucoin shows BTC/USDT, you can select other cryptocurrencies by pressing on the selector near the logo.
The main categories of trading pairs are segmented into:
- BTC Paired
- KCS Paired
- Stable Coin Paired
- ALT Paired
Not every token is paired to BTC, so if you are struggling to find a pair for a token that you like, you can use the search feature to discover all of the trading pairs available.
Select the trading pair that you want to trade.
To initiate trading, you need to input your trading password PIN. This is a security feature. The trading password/PIN needs to be entered once every two hours.
There are four different order types available for traders.
Limit Order
The limit order is placed to buy or sell a specific amount of assets at a specific price. These orders are set ahead of time in expectation of shifting market conditions.
Let’s say that you want to buy 1 BTC with USDT. The price at the moment is 9,162 USDT, but you are expecting that this price will fall down to about 8700 USDT. You can create a limit order to buy 1 BTC for 8800 USDT, whenever that price is reached by the market.
In an opposite example, you would like to sell an asset after it grows to a specific price. Limit orders can help you create this trade before-hand, so you can set it and forget it.
Market Order
When you set a market order, this means that you want to buy/sell at the current prices shown on the screen. These orders usually result in instantaneous trades, except when the market depth is too small compared to your desired quantity.
With this type of order, you control the quantity that you want to sell, and that’s it. It’s fast and easy. These orders are not recommended as the best way to buy cryptocurrencies for traders. Depending on your goals, you might be better off using Limit orders instead, but that’s up to the trader to decide.
Sometimes the market price, really is the best price.
Word of warning, you cannot cancel these orders as they are delivered immediately. The history tabs can help you understand your trades if something unexpected happens.
More on history logs later in the guide.
Stop Limit Order
Use these to sell/buy specific quantities at a specific cost. The order will only become active once the trigger price has been reached.
They are used in expectation of changing market conditions especially in anticipation for buying or selling after support is broken. It’s generally used by more experienced traders to save time and energy.
If you expect the price of an asset to grow to a specific price, but not beyond that price, you could use the same price as the trigger. You would set your price slightly below this trigger price and once the support breaks, your order will be created and published, creating a new level of support that will keep the price at the elevated level. Alternatively, if the price goes down it will be delivered to you once the market price coincides with your newly created limit order.
The benefits of this kind of order are immense because it can be used to protect traders against volatility and let you apply trading insights from your technical analysis to your advantage.
The Stop Limit Order can create win-win conditions for you as a trader. In the above example, if the price goes down, you sell at a profitable level, but if the price goes up, you still keep control of the assets and are able to sell them when you return to the exchange to trade actively.
In the image below:
- 0666 is the trigger price
- 065 is the selling price
- 100 is the quantity
Stop Market Order
KuCoin Exchange has access to Stop Market Orders which help traders ensure that their trades will activate at the desired trigger price. Once set, the order will only activate once a trigger price has been reached by the market.
Using these orders limits you to only market orders, so they are limited in their scope of use, but can prove vital for taking advantage of trends.
11. Futures Trading
https://kucoin.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360025983234-How-to-Start-Futures-Trading-
KuCoin Exchange offers two types of Futures trading interfaces:
- Futures Lite
- Futures Pro
We will discuss both platforms in this guide, but first we need to make sure that your account is set up for trading futures. It’s a simple matter of accepting terms and conditions and assigning digital currency to your account used specifically for futures trading.
Setting up your account for futures trading?
Start by logging in go to the Futures Pro option from the menu displayed in the image below.
Once the page opens, look to find “Welcome to KuCoin Futures” text displayed on the left side of the screen. Press the button “Enable Futures Trading” and accept terms and conditions.
By accepting these terms and conditions, you have fulfilled every condition necessary to start trading on the platform. After accepting, you will find yourself at the Futures Pro page where you can start to trade. Make sure to transfer your assets to the specific futures account before trading.
And finally, before we proceed to looking at the actual systems, here’s a short overview of the KuCoin Futures Fee structure that you can expect to pay for your trades in KuCoin Futures. Just like spot trading fees, futures trading fees are also influenced by your VIP level on the platform. To check your current fees, the best place is to go to https://www.kucoin.com/vip/level
KuCoin Exchange Futures Lite
KuCoin Futures Lite is a simplified version of the KuCoin Futures Pro platform. The goal of creating this platform is to improve the Futures trading experience and eliminate a lot of the complexity connected with Futures trading on the Pro platform.
https://kucoin.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/900000078066-How-to-Trade-on-KuCoin-Futures-Lite-
Futures Lite Layout Overview
Once you open the Futures Lite platform, you will see a variety of different types of information. On the top left part of the screen you can see the selected market, the chart and the information presented within, such as market movement, prices, and trends.
Just below this segment, you can find the futures data provided by KuCoin. It’s presented in a call/put ratio format and provides you with a profit calculation based on the current market data. Next to the calculator you can find a sort of leaderboard that shows you the top ranked contracts as well as your own earnings.
Finally, on the right side of the screen you can find your own contract creation interface, where you can buy crypto, transfer between accounts, create orders, as well as selling Futures contracts.
Assuming you already have Bitcoin or USDT assets on your KuCoin Futures account you can get started. You can also transfer directly from the Futures Lite interface.
Placing your first order
Futures are based on going long or short on a contract. You make bets whether the price will go down or up in the future, and you make profits if you have guessed correctly.
On KuCoin’s Lite platform, you will have a more limited experience in regards to order types. Only long and short orders are available. Placing an order is a simple process that only requires you to input your desired quantity for your order.
Beyond the quantity, you also have control over the leverage you want to use for the trade. Leverage acts as a multiplier that increases your earning potential, but also increases your risk exposure. Use with caution.
Checking your holdings
Your history starts to update from the first time you have successfully placed an order on KuCoin Futures Lite. As a result, you can find a variety of useful historical information about your trades there.
- Holding Amount - The total value of your Futures.
- Entry Price - The price at which the contact was created.
- Liquidation price - If the prevailing Futures cost drops below the liquidation cost of your contract it will be carried over via KuCoin’s liquidation system. Leverage plays a significant role in this system i.e. the more economical the leverage, the more leeway you command with your Futures contract.
- Stop Loss - You can use this function to set “Take Profit” and “Stop Loss” percentages in order to protect your position from volatility. If you are using high leverage positions, it’s recommended that you use these features to protect your investment from total loss.
Selling your Futures
To sell, it’s a simple matter of pressing the “Sell/Short” button and confirm the operation. Once the Futures contract is fully sold, you can create a new contract i.e. order. The data and history produced by this completed contract can be found under “My Earnings” in the bottom center part of the page.
What happens if your contract is liquidated?
If you don’t have the “Stop Loss” feature enabled, once the liquidation price is passed by the market for whatever reason, the system will automatically sell your orders and you will receive a notification. Most liquidation events will result in a loss.
KuCoin Exchange Futures Pro
After reading this part of the guide you will understand the need for KuCoin to simplify Futures for most retail traders. The KuCoin Exchange Futures Pro Platform is an extremely complicated and comprehensive derivative trading system that provides traders with the leveraged crypto products with a high level of security.
Unlike the Futures Lite platform, three margined cryptocurrencies i.e. Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and Tether (USDT) are available, together with a variety of different financial products only available with Futures Pro.
The USDT futures are expected to be stable and unaffected by USDT price fluctuations, while BTC futures are expected to be heavily influenced by BTC volatility. Not much has been said for ETH, but it’s likely to be under influence from the volatility experienced by the currency across all other exchanges.
Depending on your trading style, you will want to choose the appropriate cryptocurrency.
If you want, you can also participate in both futures markets, as it is extremely easy to switch between the two using the highlighted options in the image below.
https://kucoin.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360039738293-How-to-Trade-on-KuCoin-Futures-Pro-
The USDT-margin market orders are settled in USDT, ETH-margin market orders in ETH, and BTC-margin orders in BTC.
Futures Pro Layout Overview
On the top left part of the KuCoin Futures Pro platform you will find all of the buttons that help you navigate across markets or to change how the data is shown for a your currently chosen market , you can freely switch among the markets and Futures and check changes over the last price/change/trading volume, etc.
From the “Place Order” panel you can open/close your long/short positions and setup either limit, market, or stop orders.
The market overview provides you with the ability to see the current condition of the futures contract you have selected. You can see the orderbook, the Chart, Recent Trades, and the Market Depth. On the chart you also have all of the necessary tools for technical analysis.
Finally, on the bottom of the page you have your positions and history. In this window you can see all of your positions and manage their status.
Making your first trade on Futures Pro
In order to get started with trading you need to have:
- A KuCoin Exchange Account
- Enabled 2FA or SMS
- Setup your trading password
- Deposited funds in your Futures account
If you have all of the above-mentioned criteria fulfilled, you are ready to place your first order.
Navigate to the “Place Order” window and select the order type you want to place.
The available order types are:
- Limit Order - pre-defined price, pre-defined quantity
- Market Order - current price, pre-defined quantity
- Stop Order - pre-defined price, pre-defined quantity, order is executed once market reaches trigger price.
- Trigger types:
- Last Price
- Market Price
- Index Price
All of these order types and triggers can be used to either long or short the contract of your choosing.
With any order type, pressing the “Buy/Long” or “Sell/Short” button will initiate your order and make it active in the marketplace.
Below these buttons you will find the maximum and minimum order price restrictions for the orders, together with the cost necessary for executing the order.
Leverage
Leverage is used to multiply the performance of your orders. The higher the leverage, the greater the effect. Leverage affects both earnings and losses, so keep that in mind. Leverage is restricted for accounts that haven’t passed KYC verification yet. Once KYC verification is complete, you will instantly have the maximum leverage at your disposal.
Advanced Futures Pro Settings
On the Pro version of the Futures platform you can set advanced settings to your limit or stop orders. These settings i.e. policies are:
- Post Only - When post-only is selected, the order will not execute immediately against the market, and thus a maker fee is ensured. If it crosses the market, it will be canceled instead.
- Hidden - A hidden order is normally a large single order that has been divided into smaller limit orders, for the purpose of hiding the actual order quantity.
- Reduce Only - A Reduce-Only order will only reduce your position (does not require margin to be frozen). If the order would increase your position, it is amended down or canceled automatically.
- Time in Force - This setting affects the length of time the order will be active in the marketplace. It’s set to Good Till Cancelled (GTC) by default. The other option is Immediate or Cancel (IOC)
Once you’ve placed an order on KuCoin Futures Pro
From the moment your order is active, it will start to generate earnings or accrue losses for you, depending on the order type, direction, and marketplace price changes.
If your position is long, and the price of the Futures contract goes up, you will earn profits.
If your position is short, and the price of the Futures contract goes down, you will earn profits.
The opposite of the above statements will accrue losses for you.
Reviewing your positions
Once you have successfully submitted an order on KuCoin Futures Pro, the details of the order will be saved and presented to you in your holdings overview. From here you can check, cancel, and stop orders in the position list.
If your order is currently open, you will find it under the “Open Positions” tab. There you can overview the following parameters:
- Quantity - Number of Futures in your order
- Entry Price - The average entry price of the position
- Liquidation price - If the price of the futures reaches this liquidation price, your position will be closed and liquidated.
- Unrealized PNL - The floating profit and loss of the current positions.
- Realized PNL - The calculation of the realised PNL is based on the difference between the entry price and exit price of a position.
- Margin - The minimum amount of funds you must hold to keep a position open. Auto-Deposit Margin - When Auto-Deposit Margin mode is enabled, funds in the Available Balance will be added to the existing positions whenever liquidation occurs, trying to prevent the position from being liquidated.
- Take Profit/Stop Loss - Enabling take profit or stop loss settings and the system will perform the take profit and stop loss operations automatically to your positions to prevent funds losses caused by volatile price fluctuation.
- Close Position - The easiest way to close your position.
More about closing positions
On the KuCoin Futures Pro platform open positions are designed to be accumulated to closure. To close a position you can click on close in the position overview, or create the opposite order. If your position size is +100, you would need to create a short order for -100 in order to close it.
Clicking the “Close” button automates this same exact process.
It is important that you have this ability to exit your position by shorting or going long, depending on the type and direction of your original position.
Margin trading on KuCoin Exchange
https://kucoin.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360036553673-How-to-Start-Margin-Trade
Margin trading is a term used to explain a type of trading where the trader borrows money from a third party in order to purchase an investment. In this case, the third party is KuCoin and other KuCoin users that use the lending features available on the exchange.
Usually, margin i.e. loaning is allowed up to the equal (or close to equal) difference of the total value of cryptocurrency held in your margin account against the value of the borrowed security provided by the third party.
In order to utilize margin trading on KuCoin Exchange, you need to:
- Have an account
- Enable 2FA or SMS verification
- Have a trading password enabled (six-digit PIN)
- Have funds on your margin account.
- Enable Margin Trading
We’ve already covered how to fulfil the above mentioned criteria elsewhere in this guide, so if you need help with these aspects, make sure you do them first as they are required for mostly everything that you can do on KuCoin Exchange.
The only thing that we haven’t covered is how to enable margin trading. To do this, navigate to Trade and select Margin on the exchange’s homepage.
After you access the trading platform, look to the bottom right where you will notice that the order creation functions are grayed out. Click on “Enable”.
Finally, read through the terms and conditions and confirm the margin trading enablement.
That’s it! You are now ready to make your first margin trade.
Margin Trading Settings
Auto-Borrow
When the Auto-Borrow feature is enabled, if your balance is insufficient to make a trade, the system will automatically borrow funds to make the trade happen. It will look for the most efficient rate from the market, at the moment you place your Margin trade order.
Borrow Manually
When the Auto-Borrow feature is disabled, any borrowing must be done manually by the trader. To borrow manually, you must do it before placing the order by clicking on Borrow/Repay while in the Margin Trading platform.
On the pop-up screen you need to input the type of cryptocurrency and the amount you want to borrow and then confirm to complete the process.
If you want to repay your loans manually, you can select the appropriate option, or navigate to Earn -> Loans on the homepage and repay from there.
Auto-Repay
With Auto-Repay function enabled, the system will scan the account every 30 minutes and repay the borrowed tokens if there are any available in your account.
Creating your first margin trade order
Margin trading is technically similar to spot trading, as you have access to the same types of orders:
- Limit
- Market
- Stop
Creating and executing an order is done through the Order window in the bottom right of the screen.
To place an order on KuCoin Margin Trade, please select the order type and enter your order quantity.
When you borrow assets to buy other assets, you will get a profit if the price of the purchased currency rises in relation to the base currency. You can also sell borrowed assets to short the token/coin and you will get a profit if the price of the currency decreases, as you’ve already sold it for a higher price.
Lending
In order for KuCoin Margin Trading to function properly, KuCoin provides lending services to their customers. Through these services you can lend specific amounts of cryptocurrency to other users and charge interest on these loans.
This function uses your funds from the main account, in order to create and distribute your loans. Make sure you have your assets in the Main account to lend successfully.
https://kucoin.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360036053154-How-to-Lend-
To create your first loan, go to the Lending page found under Earn on the homepage.
This leads you to the Lending page where you can open the loan order. As a lender you only need to fill in the loan amount, daily interest rate (0-0.2% range), and finally the lending terms, which could be 7, 14, or 28 days by default.
Once the loan order is successfully executed, the cryptocurrency enters the lending market and data about the order is written in the “Open Orders” section of the page.
The moment the order is matched with a borrower it enters unsettled and becomes a loan.
On the “Settled” page you can see two types of order status:
- Paid off: the principal and interest have been paid; the borrower gets a negative balance, but the risk fund has made up.
- Not paid off: the borrower gets a negative balance, but the risk fund's corresponding currency balance is insufficient
Lastly, the “Order History” tab contains information about completed and cancelled orders.
10. Pool-X
https://pool-x.zendesk.com/hc/en-us
Pool-X is a staking platform created by the people behind KuCoin Exchange and it operates seamlessly with the exchange. Your KuCoin Exchange account is automatically available for use with the Pool-X platform.
This platform is a big part of the KuCoin Ecosystem. It even has its own support website, just for Pool-X. It has its own exchange for staked assets and it enables you to stake 21 different cryptocurrencies for a regular annual yield.
Depending on the cryptocurrency that you are staking, you can expect anywhere between 3-50% Annual Yield. These numbers are provided by Pool-X and only represent approximate references on a case-by-case basis.
11. “KuCoin” - Exchange App
We were surprised by the mobile applications and their ability to include almost everything. We did most of our testing on iPhone, where almost all of the features were available.
The only feature that was not available was the Futures Lite platform. The Futures Pro platform is still available on mobile.
All in all, we are pleasantly surprised by the level of quality of the app.
How to install the mobile application?
Official communication about the installation of smartphone applications. Be careful of fake websites and fake applications. https://kucoin.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360014804634
Make sure to download the application from the official webpage.
Installing the application is easy as downloading the application from the appropriate app store, i.e. play store. The official support documents contain a lot of troubleshooting information, but we didn’t need to do any of that to get the app working on our iPhone.
Using the iPhone KuCoin Exchange App
The KuCoin Exchange iPhone app is a great way to stay connected to the exchange on the go. It can be useful for overviewing your portfolio. Depending on how you feel about trading on a mobile phone, you may even use it as a tool for active trading.
We will take you step-by-step through all of the screens and most important features, but realistically the application is almost as advanced as the web version.
You can access all forms of trading, Pool-X, and even lending.
Log in
Log in to your KuCoin Exchange account by entering your email and login password, just like they are on your web account.
Solve the puzzle to prove that you are not a robot.
Enter your 2FA activation code.
If you have SMS authentication you can also login with the SMS.
Navigation Options
Top bar (in order left to right)
- Profile/Log in
- QR scanner
- Notifications
- Search
Overview of the current market prices
Features
Asset Management
If you are going to use your application for trading, you will want to have cryptocurrency on your account. You can do this easily on mobile, either by P2P trading, Credit/Debit Card purchases, Transferring, or Depositing Cryptocurrency to your wallets/accounts.
Buy with Fiat
Use your application to buy crypto using the P2P marketplace (via Paypal usually) or the Credit/Debit Card Feature.
Transfer Cryptocurrency
To access the ability to transfer cryptocurrency you need to select Assets on the first screen.
You can also use this screen to lend crypto to other users.
Deposit Cryptocurrency
Trading with the iPhone Application
The iPhone application is fully functional and enables you with quick access to all trading types on KuCoin Exchange. We will pass through these screens without providing too much detail, as it is mentioned in the appropriate sections of the guide.
Spot Trading
When you first open the spot trading tab, you can see a list of all trading pairs. Make sure you select the crypto you want to trade now, as the following screens will all be connected to your choice here.
Order Types
All of the usual spot order types are available on the application.
Buy
Buying is as simple as the web application. Choose your order type, setup your parameters for the trade and press “Buy”.
Sell
Creating sell orders is also similar to how things are done on the web application.
Futures Trading
Futures trading is extremely complicated and we’ve covered it previously in the guide. You can do most of the things you can do on the Futures Pro platform, but there is no access to Futures Lite.
Margin Trading
Margin trading is possible on the iPhone KuCoin application. You can borrow and use that cryptocurrency to long or short the markets without engaging in futures.
Order Types
All of the usual margin order types are available on the application.
Borrow/Repay
You can borrow and repay debts using the iPhone application.
Buying with Margin Trading
To buy on margin, first make sure you have the desired trading pair open. Then select the order type, quantity, price, and trigger price (depending on the order type) and press “Buy/Long”.
Selling with Margin Trading
To sell on margin, make sure you have the desired trading pair open. Select the order type, quantity, price, and trigger price (depending on the order type) and press “Sell/Short”.
Community
The best way to connect with official KuCoin groups and social media. As long as you downloaded the app using the official sources, this list will be one of the best sources of KuCoin community information.
KuCoin Bonus
You can track the progress of your KCS bonus rewards.
Pool-X Staking
Staking using Pool-X is also possible with the iPhone application. Just select the crypto that you want to stake and you can make the deposit.
Check-in For Candies
Daily login reward program that provides you with points that you can use on the exchange for a variety of different things. Candies are expected to be used for KuCoin custom gifts, eligibility for platform activities and airdrops on newly launched projects. KuCoin reserves the rights to change the rules at any time, as mentioned in the Redemption Standards.
We couldn’t find an explanation about what KuCoin Redemption Standards are, so we asked the chat support team. They explained that candies are used periodically to reward users for their loyalty, but they couldn’t give us any information regarding the frequency of these events, or these rewards are redeemable in any way.
As far as we understand the standards, KuCoin can use these points to provide rewards, but not always. At the time of writing, two full months had passed since the last candy event. It’s up to you to determine if something like this is interesting for you.
Potential rewards with no risk.
Here’s what you need to do to get Candy
It is very simple to get Candy. You just need to “Check-In” every 24 hours, and you collect the points. They may or may not be used to redeem a reward.
History
You can overview your history of deposits, withdrawals, trading orders for spot, margin, and futures.
12. Is KuCoin Exchange a Secure Platform?
https://kucoin.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360015207473-KuCoin-Security-Notice
Kucoin is one of the few exchanges that hasn’t experienced a hack or major loss of funds. Every system has vulnerabilities, but KuCoin is keeping on top of its own exchange and security.
KuCoin also forces the user to practice good security habits by demanding that he or she activates 2FA and an additional Trading Password before being able to trade. Access to any of the more sensitive parts of the account requires 2FA codes.
The exchange is relatively young having started in 2017, but for now they have shown great promise to keep themselves and their users safe from harm.
There are records of people losing their accounts to hackers as a result of phishing and the hacker getting control over your email address. Most email providers have a 2FA function as well, which you would be wise to have activated.
Keeping your passwords complicated and 2FA activated (on your KuCoin account and email account) will provide you with enough security that will protect your assets on the exchange, as long as the exchange itself is not hacked.
Official Media Verification
KuCoin is a rare gem in the fight against scammers because it allows you to check any person and see if they are affiliated with KuCoin. Using the link above, you can check any telephone number, email, WeChat, Telegram, Skype, Twitter, or website address and see if it is a real KuCoin contact.
https://cert.kucoin.com/?lang=en_US
13. How to List on KuCoin
The token review process for listing new assets looks like this:
https://kucoin.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360003229494-How-to-List-a-Coin-on-KuCoin
If you would like to list your token on KuCoin, you need to fill out a Google Form and wait for them to contact you.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf4tlSwIgZ5-QQJpKoi3-WnmwOVtpxFq4V8vv4CwZccizHuYg/viewform
14. Customer Service
https://kucoin.zendesk.com/hc/en-us
The KuCoin Exchange support center has a lot of information available already, so it’s always a good idea to search for an answer before reaching out to chat support.
Speaking of chat support, in our tests the KuCoin Exchange team responded within 5 seconds. At the time we were in the first place of the queue, which was promptly displayed before the chat started. In the next few seconds the support agent “Elsa” connected and we asked a simple question about getting started with margin trading.
Here’s how our conversation went:
We also reached out to chat support for the candies section of this guide (see mobile applications) where they also provided fast and accurate support.
15. Regulation & Supervision
Update: We reached out for more information directly to KuCoin’s marketing team, and received confirmation that the exchange is working on acquiring licenses from regulators in Europe and Asia. They couldn’t give us any more information beyond this.
KuCoin doesn’t seem to be regulated by any financial institution. The exchange is self-regulated. Although this would represent a significant issue in most other instances, considering the stainless three-year-long track record of KuCoin Exchange, you are in pretty safe hands.
Most likely they are collaborating with their investors for regulative support. Looking at the terms and conditions, as well as the various processes suggests some regulative compliance, but there is no clear indication of which financial authority is directly responsible for regulating KuCoin Exchange.
In addition, the lack of KYC for small quantities also suggests a certain lack of regulation.
Conclusion
KuCoin Exchange is a behemoth of features. There are so many layers to their services that it is really hard to completely cover it in one article. If you feel that anything is missing, please let us know. we are dedicated to making this guide one of the most comprehensive and accurate source of information about the KuCoin Exchange for you.
We started writing this guide with an open mind and were pleasantly surprised at the depth of the exchange. From global communities to exquisite control over trading orders, writing about the KuCoin Exchange was a pleasant experience.
Hopefully, you found value and useful information that helped you on your own KuCoin journey!