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Carla Moretti
Carla Moretti
With almost two decades of experience in the fast-paced financial industry, Carla has established herself as a powerhouse and an innovative leader.
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    7. Kucoin Australia Review 2023:...

    Kucoin Australia Review 2023: Fees, Pros & Cons

    Kucoin Australia Review

    Kucoin Australia Review: Our Opinion

    KuCoin is one of the best-known cryptocurrency exchanges in the world and one of the top exchanges for Australian crypto investors. It has a great range of features and hosts some of the best altcoins and top fiat currencies. Although it isn’t regulated like most exchanges, it has a KYC verification process to ensure that no illegal activities stem from the exchange.

    An Overview of Kucoin

    Kucoin Home Page

    Launched in 2017, KuCoin offers everything – from spot trading to futures and margin trading, to automated trading bots that users can avail of for free. To understand the philosophy from which exchanges like KuCoin stem, we need to take a look at the broader financial world.

    The Financial World At Large

    Revolutionary technology is called revolutionary for a reason – it presents itself as a threat to established systems. When established systems feel threatened, they push back and try to bring down revolutionary technology in any way possible.

    When cryptocurrencies and the blockchain first entered the scene, the most vehement opposers were banks, stock exchanges, governments, and other financial institutions. They saw a threat to the unilateral and unchallenged power and control that they had on the public and wanted it to be eradicated or ridiculed to the best of their power.

    Even today, with so many cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies working for the betterment of society, cryptocurrencies are not accepted. Traditional financial institutions and media tell the general public that these digital phenomena are baseless assets and technologies that hold no value in reality.

    In reality, cryptocurrencies are a billion-dollar market that power innovative solutions in the form of blockchains, decentralized applications and finance, and much more. To bring some sort of regulation and trading nexus to this chaos, cryptocurrency exchanges emerged.

    Since cryptocurrencies aren’t officially recognized as assets, they cannot be traded in traditional markets. There are many cryptocurrency exchanges out there like Binance, Coinbase, and Bybit. However, we are here to walk you through the KuCoin exchange, and see what makes it stand out amongst its competitors in Australia.

    Pros

    Cons

    History of the Founders

    The founders of KuCoin have an interesting history. Michael had always been a tech geek, and he started coding when he was only 8 years old. He founded his first startup when he was only 16. In 2012, together with his boss Eric, Michael became one of the early adopters of Bitcoin and started mining it.

    However, there was not much infrastructure for actually trading cryptocurrencies, and the ones that existed were very hard to use, as Michael experienced when he tried to sell some of his BTC on Mt. Gox.

    Michael saw that cryptocurrency was a phenomenon that was only going to increase in applicability and popularity as time passed. He saw a niche in the market where he thought he could cater to the needs of the people by creating an exchange that was guided towards the needs of a common man who wasn’t well versed in the technological world.

    He sought to serve the less educated, those without bank accounts, those without any employment in an exchange that would embrace all. The first lines of code of KuCoin were written in a cafe by Michael.

    We haven’t said much about Eric. He is currently the President of the company while also being the senior internet researcher and systems architect. He worked as a senior IT partner at YOULIN.COM, and KITEME before going to KuCoin. Apart from these two, the core team included Top Lan, Kent Li, John Lee, Jack Zhu, and Linda Lin. Together, the team worked on their dream and officially launched the KuCoin Exchange on September 15th, 2017.

    KuCoin Token KCS ICO

    To support KuCoin’s development, an ICO was held in 2017 to collect funds from August 13th to September 1st. KuCoin issued its native coin shares, KuCoin Shares (KCS) tokens. In the crowd sale, KuCoin managed to raise USD 20,000,000 in BTC by selling 100,000,000 KCS. If you do the calculation, at the time a KCS was sold for 0.000055 BTC.

    Since the ICO, KuCoin has burned about 1 million KCS to reduce the circulating supply in the market. Although the initial supply was capped at 200 million KCS, through the burning mechanism, they plan to stabilize the supply at 100 million. The KCS management foundation consists of the core KuCoin team, KCC GoDAO Foundation, investment institutions, KCS holder community representatives, and other stakeholders.

    The KCS coins are used for a variety of purposes. Those who hold at least 6 KCS are eligible for a daily reward that comes from 50% of the KuCoin trading fees generated that day. Depending on the amount of KCS that you hold, you will get VIP levels that offer discounts on the trading fee and additional benefits. Furthermore, the best part is that KCS users get the chance to become the first investors in new and innovative projects launched on KuCoin, allowing them a chance to make great ROI.

    Where To Buy and Store KCS

    The only popular crypto exchange for Australians where you can get KCS is KuCoin, which makes a lot of since KCS are the native tokens of KuCoin. You can also find them listed on some smaller exchanges, but it is wiser to buy it on its native exchange due to more liquidity and safety.

    As for storing KCS, it is recommended that you store them in a crypto wallet. You can choose any major service provider like TrustWallet or MetaMask. It is safer to store your crypto on a wallet instead of an exchange because no matter how safe an exchange is, it can still undergo security issues, face downtime, or be the victim of a hack.

    KuCoin Australia Features

    Kucoin Features

    The KuCoin exchange sports some great features that allow users to trade in the best way possible on the platform, including a mobile app on both Android and iOS. Let’s take a look at some of these and see how they affect trading on the platform.

    Low Trading Fees and Many Options

    KuCoin has about 200 cryptocurrencies listed on the exchange. It supports a wide variety of assets and provides a constant stream of discounts and bonuses to encourage trading on the platform. It charges only 0.1% per trade and has an even smaller fee margin if you are trading on futures/margin trading on your KuCoin account.

    Bank Level Asset Security

    The security measures that KuCoin uses are well-known for being fraud resistant. KuCoin Australia uses features like micro-withdrawal wallets, a multilayer encryption system, a dedicated internal risk control management system, multi-factor authentication, and a promise to oversee day-to-day tasks with strict data security control. 

    Margins and Futures

    KuCoin supports a vast variety of Margin and Futures contracts and allows the use of leverage as high as 100x. A lot of platforms limit margin at 50x, but KuCoin allows users to trade as freely as possible. Margin trading is easier for advanced traders on the exchange since KuCoin users get a lot of trading fee reductions, especially in the future trading and margin trading aspects.

    Availability of the Best Cryptocurrencies

    KuCoin supports all internationally accepted currencies like USD, GBP, EUR, CNY, AUD, and CAD. You can use fiat money to buy cryptocurrencies any time you want, with credit and debit options at Banxa, PayMIR, and Simplex. There’s also a fast buy service that supports CNY, IDR, and VND to purchase BTC or USDT.

    Make your Money Work For You

    You can make the money you put in cryptocurrencies work for you on this crypto exchange. The exchange allows you to use staking, soft staking, and lending to earn money without risking your assets.

    KuCoin Account Verification (KYC)

    Kucoin KYC Verification

    The issue with having decentralized exchanges, currencies, and technologies is that people can easily use them to facilitate illegal ventures and propaganda. To fight this, KuCoin introduced the know your customer (KYC) authentication system on November 1, 2018. The KYC system was mainly put in place to prevent criminals from using the exchange.

    KYC verification is not compulsory if you’re a new, low-volume trader. It is compulsory to unlock higher-level features on the platform and to trade in greater volumes.

    It is still in your best interest to get verified, however, since verified users get a variety of benefits, including but not limited to increased daily withdrawal limits and account recovery in case of loss of credentials.

    As for the withdrawal limits, an unverified KuCoin Australia account is allowed to withdraw only 2 BTC per day. A verified account allows daily withdrawals of up to 100 BTC per day and a verified institutional account allows withdrawals of up to 500 BTC in a day.

    Once direct fiat-to-crypto trading is available on the platform, only verified users will be allowed to partake in it, thus it is in the best interest of users to get verified and unlock it. KuCoin partnered with Chainalysis to further increase the success of its KYC efforts.

    Detailed Fee Structure (Trading Fees)

    Kucoin Trading Fees

    As we mentioned before, the KuCoin fee model is a lot more forgiving than other popular exchanges. KuCoin uses a tiered maker/taker fee model. This model is basically payment for order flow, where people who provide liquidity to the market are rewarded for their efforts. Depending on the tier level, fees can range between 0.0125% to 1%. Here’s a detailed list depicting how the tier system works: 

    Buying Crypto with Fiat on KuCoin

    The first step towards trading cryptocurrency is usually buying a stablecoin. You have to spend fiat money initially to get into the crypto market, and there are various ways that you can exchange your fiat for crypto on KuCoin. You can purchase crypto directly from your bank account using integrated solutions like Simplex, Banxa, or PayMIR. You can also use the P2P desk and the fast buy feature to buy coins.

    The fee you are charged for the transaction will depend a lot on the method that you choose. For example, Banxa charges a variable rate between 4-6% depending on what the transaction amount is and other particulars.

    Simplex mostly charges 3.5%, but the rate can vary depending on the circumstances. The P2P market is a marketplace where sellers and buyers can put up their advertisements.

    You connect directly with them and communicate within the KuCoin application. P2P is slightly risky because you are dealing with an independent party, but in case of scams, this crypto exchange will help you retrieve your funds if you provide them with sufficient proof. 

    KuCoin is currently perhaps the best performing exchange when it comes to buying crypto with fiat. It competes head-to-head with one of the most popular exchanges out there, Binance, and still manages to hold its own with ease of access, low fees, and more trading pairs.

    Let’s move further and talk about the design elements of the exchange, and how they help users to trade more easily.

    KuCoin UI and Features

    Cryptocurrencies market on Kucoin

    As promised by the founders, KuCoin’s UI is very easy to use and understand, and all of its features are targeted toward making a beginner feel at home. Powered by a great API interface, the advanced trading engine of KuCoin can easily work with millions of transactions per second, ensuring that you will never lose out on a trade due to the platform’s speed.

    KuCoin recently updated its layout and UI, introducing new features and removing some old ones to make the entire process easier and more intuitive. You can still use the old UI and layout if you want, but the newer UI is a worthy successor in our opinion. Let’s take a look at some of the windows in KuCoin and what features they give you access to.

    Markets

    The Markets tab allows Aussie investors and Aussie traders to do what they came to do on the exchange: trade crypto. Your search for the market you want to trade and get down to business. Before you can trade, however, you need to re-enter your trading password, a layer of security that can seem a bit annoying but which you will thank when it saves you from losing your money.

    Price Chart

    The price chart window has all the charting tools you need to do advanced technical analysis, with everything from the Fibonacci tool to RSI’s available at your disposal. Usually, you would need to open a separate window and go to TradingView to be able to do this, but KuCoin makes the entire process a whole lot easier.

    Order Placing Window

    The order placing window is where you can choose what kind of order you want to place. For the uninitiated, green represents buying and red represents selling. The basic order types are Market, Stop Market, Limit, and Stop Limit order.

    Advanced users can go further in-depth and specify more conditions like Time in Force ( Good Till Canceled, Fill or Kill, Immediate or Cancel, and Good Till Time), Post-only, and Hidden.

    Order Book

    The Order Book is an important tool used in trading. It shows all the orders other users have placed and can be a great indicator of whether the market is more inclined towards buying or selling.

    Recent Trades

    Recent Trades allows you to see what the recent trades made by people are, and gauge what’s currently hot in the market. In the cryptocurrency market, you can make good trades based on such sentimental analysis where technical analysis might not give you many insights.

    All these tabs, charts, and numbers can be a little intimidating for beginners, but regardless of the fact, KuCoin is the best platform to start your learning experience. Let’s now take a look at how futures trading functions on the platform since it is an important aspect of cryptocurrency trading.

    KuCoin Futures Trading

    Kucoin Trading Platform

    Future Trading on KuCoin was launched in mid-2019 and is also available in Australia. The contracts are usually against BTC or USDT and allow leverage up to 100x. There are two versions of the platform; one targeted towards newbies (lite version) and the other targeted towards experts (pro version).

    The lite version has only BTC and ETH margined contracts, while the pro version lets you choose between USDT margined perpetual contracts of ETH and BTC, and different BTC futures contracts like BTC perpetual, BTC Quarterly 095, and BTC Quarterly 1225. KuCoin uses a weighted price average from popular sources like Coinbase Pro to calculate the spot price.

    It is always prudent to take future trading with a grain of salt, especially in volatile markets like the cryptocurrency market. If you’re an inexperienced trader, you might even not know it and lose your money in seconds.

    KuCoin Earn

    Kucoin Earn

    As mentioned earlier, KuCoin presents users with a lot of opportunities to make money from their digital assets. KuCoin has two main programs users can avail of to earn money on the platform:

    Pool-X

    Pool-X is a mining pool that is based on the Proof-of-Stake technology, i.e., it allows you to stake your crypto in a mining block to earn more crypto. The pool provides liquidity and generates rewards in return.

    The highest-yield coins on the exchange are currently ZIL, ATOM, KCS, EOS, TOMO, XTZ, ZRX, IOST, TRX, and others. Pool-X combines Proof-of-Stake with Proof-of-Liquidity, a decentralized zero-reservation credit-issued protocol based on TRON’s TRC-20 protocol.

    KuCoin Lend

    You can also earn money on KuCoin by lending your assets to fund margin/futures accounts. The loans are in 7, 14, and 28-day periods and can earn you up to 12% annual interest.

    However, the lending services work only on a limited number of cryptocurrencies at the moment, the list including USDT, BTC, ETH, EOS, LTC, XRP, ADA, ATOM, TRX, BCH, BSV, ETC, ZEC, XLM, and XTZ

    KuCoin vs. Binance

    Let’s take a look at how well KuCoin fares compared to one of its biggest competitors, Binance:

    Fee Structure

    KuCoin’s fee structure becomes better and better as your trading volume increases with low trading fees, thus it offers some great discounts to big traders. Binance, however, offers free withdrawals of certain assets and free deposits with a more averaged-out fee structure, thus it is cheaper to use as a small trader.

    Trading Pairs

    Binance offers up to 242 altcoins, whereas KuCoin has only 179. However, there are still some coins that are exclusively available on KuCoin, and it is unlikely that it will affect the trading behavior of a new trader significantly because the most popular pairs are available on both platforms.

    KuCoin gets the upper hand when it comes to variability in trading pairs, with Binance only allowing trades in stablecoins and its native coin, BNB, whereas KuCoin allows trading in NEO and BTC Cash (BCH).

    Kucoin Customer Service

    Kucoin Support Centre

    KuCoin’s customer service is extremely fast, with a 24/7 channel working on telegram to support its users. The response rate there is also great. Binance’s customer service mechanisms work through tickets, where customers are assigned tickets and have to wait for their turn. Thus, there is a longer waiting time on Binance.

    Trading Bots

    Both platforms support third-party automated trading bots. However, KuCoin offers a bot for free whereas Binance does not, giving KuCoin a great edge, especially for beginners who can’t or don’t want to spend money on a trading bot and yet want to see how they function. Trading bots usually give you a great edge in futures trading and are an essential tool for advanced traders.

    Final Thoughts

    The KuCoin cryptocurrency exchange offers Aussie investors a variety of digital assets suited for both beginner and experienced traders. Free trading bots, great crypto lending mechanisms, and availability of changing fiat currencies are all features that make this crypto exchange worth your while.

    Furthermore, the KuCoin cryptocurrency exchange has some of the best futures trading contracts with low trading fees, and great margin trading aspects that many crypto exchanges lack.

    You can exchange your fiat currencies for crypto in a multitude of ways on this crypto exchange as well as withdraw fiat currency according to your leisure using bank transfer or P2P trading. The mobile app is also great, with all sorts of crypto assets available. KuCoin is a great alternative to popular exchanges like Binance since it is available in countries like the US where Binance is still banned.

    At the end of the day, the community behind any crypto project is what makes or breaks it, since everything on the blockchain works on the decentralized ideology, with projects being backed and upheld by users instead of massive corporations.

    We have listed all the key features of the KuCoin Australia exchange. What remains is your voice on the matter. Is KuCoin Exchange worth using?

    Our extensive analysis of the Australian Crypto Exchanges doesn’t stop here. You can also read about our Coinspot review as an alternative to Kucoin or you can check out our list of best exchanges available to Australians.

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