Complete Explanation on the Recent Changes of KuCoinPlay and 1 Million Giveaway Campaign

Dear KuCoin and KuCoinPlay Fans:

Thank you for your recent attention on KuCoin and KuCoinPlay. We apologize that the miscommunication in the recent KuCoinPlay rebrand has caused some doubts and concerns. At KuCoin, Transparency and Users First are the top two values, and here we would like to make a complete clarification regarding the current status of KuCoinPlay as well as the next steps for the 1 Million Giveaway Campaign launched by KuCoinPlay.

The Story Between KuCoin & Winplay Marketing team

KuCoinPlay is developed by KuCoin and our former partner Winplay team. Our cooperation with the Winplay marketing team started in early 2018. In the past two years, the team had provided KuCoin with marketing, project research and community management services. It is undeniable that the Winplay marketing team contributed to the early development of KuCoin, but we gradually found that their services can no longer meet our expectations, nevertheless, we still pay the service fee on a monthly basis according to the contract as agreed between the parties.

What makes it difficult for us to continue the cooperation with the Winplay marketing team is that in July 2019, we found that the token of our project partner that was temporarily managed by the Winplay marketing team was moved without authorization and sold in the market. Our investigating team conducted a prudent investigation for up to 4 months, and during the investigation, we communicated with the project developer and related staff, and carefully collected all evidence. Around late November 2019, we found that all evidence shows that the Winplay marketing team embezzled the project’s tokens which were for marketing campaigns on KuCoin and made illegal profits by participating in Staking and selling in the market.

KuCoin has always required all our partners to hold the same commitments as ourselves to our users and project partners. After we verified the Winplay marketing team's illegal behaviors, we immediately warned the team to return the illegal proceeds and must apologize to the project. Unfortunately, after several communications and warnings were made, the team not only denied the fact that the digital assets of the project were illegally misappropriated, refused to return the illegal proceeds, but even asked KuCoin to cooperate with the Winplay marketing team to sue the project. KuCoin is of the view that the behaviors of the Winplay marketing team have seriously harmed the interests of our users and project partner, damaged the trust between the two parties, and touched our last straw.

Since the Winplay marketing team refused to provide any remedy to rectify its illegal conducts, KuCoin officially notified the Winplay marketing team on November 30 2019 to terminate all cooperation related to digital asset custody. After the contract was terminated, the team not only refused to return the tokens of project for marketing campaigns, but also refused to return several KuCoin’s social media accounts that used to be assigned to the Winplay marketing team for administration.

The Story of KuCoinPlay

Before we figured out the Winplay marketing team's illegal behaviors, the cooperation between two parties on KuCoinPlay started, in which KuCoin provided brand and domain licensing while the Winplay.app team was responsible for website development and the site operations. We are of the view that KuCoinPlay is able to bring blockchain to the masses through gamification, and such an idea perfectly matched our target of mass adoption of blockchain and crypto in each individual's ordinary life.

In August 2019, KuCoinPlay beta version was launched.

In January 2020, KuCoinPlay was officially launched in line with the original plan. Considering the Winplay marketing team’s assistance in the early stage of development of KuCoin, and the fact that KuCoinPlay's business does not involve digital asset custody, we did not immediately terminate the KuCoinPlay cooperation between the parties.

Until February 12, 2020, the Winplay.app team used KuCoin's Sendgrid email channel without our consent and sent emails to our users claiming that KuCoinPlay will be rebranded as WinPlay, which deeply shocked us. The Winplay.app team illegally used our media resources spreading false statements without our authorization, and such breach has caused significant negative impact on our brand, which constitutes a material breach of Winplay.app team’s contractual obligation. Although we communicated with the Winplay.app team immediately, we did not receive any single message from the team.

The repeated breaches were unexpected, we were of the view that the Winplay.app team will cherish the last cooperation opportunity and complete their self-redemption. From February 15 to 18, 2020, with an intention to save a long-term friend, we still did not give up our efforts to communicate with the Winplay.app team. Unfortunately, while the Winplay.app team refused to talk to us, they continued to use the KuCoin’s media channels that they refused to return to distribute inaccurate and false information to our fans. Although KuCoin has consistently approached the Winplay.app team through the official channel, protesting against its illegal behaviors that have seriously infringed the rights of KuCoin and have caused misunderstandings to an enormous number of KuCoin users, we have yet to receive any reply from the team.

Due to the Winplay.app team’s repeated breaches and their unwillingness to conduct any communication with us, On February 18, 2020, without any other options, KuCoin officially released an announcement, and decided to terminate the cooperation with the Winplay.app team, and terminate the "KuCoin" trademark licensing.

Next Steps for the 1 Million Giveaway Campaign

Regarding the 1 Million Giveaway Campaign that you may care about, this campaign was jointly launched by KuCoin and KuCoinPlay on January 10, 2020. However, during the event, many users found it impossible to verify their accounts, and it was also noticed that a few users used illicit ways to get a high ranking, which greatly affected the fairness of the campaign. As a result, many genuine users who participated in the campaign ended up with nothing. During the campaign period, we have communicated with the Winplay.app team many times about the issues of the platform and urged them to solve the above problems, but so far with little result.

Now, KuCoin and KuCoinPlay have terminated cooperation, so the 1 Million Giveaway Campaign may not be able to continue. Although there are many bounty hunters who used illicit ways to improve their ranking during the campaign, there are still a lot of real KuCoin users who spent time and effort participating in the campaign and we don’t want to let them down. Therefore, we have developed a compensation plan for all users who didn’t violate the rules of the campaign, please click here for more details.

KuCoin to Take Legal Action to Defend Our Rights

We are very grateful to the Winplay marketing team for their support and assistance to KuCoin in the past two years. And of course, with the rapid development of KuCoin, the Winplay marketing team has also obtained abundant returns for the services they provided. We always hope that we can have a happy ending when we no longer work together one day, but we deeply regret the illegal behaviours conducted by the Winplay team. Our legal team has collected relevant evidence in relation to all above-mentioned illegal behaviors, and shall take all necessary legal actions to protect the rights of KuCoin with regards to the following matters: -

1. The Winplay marketing team misappropriated the digital assets of our project partner to make illegal profits by participate in Staking and selling in the market;

2. The Winplay.app team illegally used KuCoin's media resources to promote their own business in the name of KuCoin;

3. After the termination of cooperation, the Winplay marketing team intentionally, negligently or otherwise failed to handover the digital assets deposited in their custodian account;

4. After the termination of cooperation, the Winplay marketing team intentionally, negligently or otherwise failed to handover the KuCoin’s media resources used to be assigned to them for administration during the contract term.

We would like to reaffirm here that KuCoinPlay has ceased to provide services to all users, and Winplay.app is not KuCoin’s product. Please kindly notice that Kucoinplay.com and Winplay.app are not owned, endorsed, or directly or indirectly controlled by KuCoin Group.

If you are a member of the media and would like to get more evidence to help the public understand the truth, please feel free to contact media@kucoin.com for more information.

As “The People’s Exchange”, our users’ experience and security are always our top concern. KuCoin will continue to provide users and project partners with a secure, stable, and easy-to-use trading platform. We are deeply sorry for the credulity and poor supervision of our partners, and we will strictly supervise any outsourcing third parties in the future. At the same time, we welcome partners who share the same values to contact and work with us. KuCoin apologizes again to all the users and project partners who were affected in this incident.

The KuCoin Team

February 20, 2020