A Special AMA With The KuCoin CEO — Don't FUD, We BUIDL

2022/07/12 06:45:46

Dear KuCoin Users,

Time: July 8, 2022, 12:00 PM - 13:08 PM (UTC)

On July 8, 2022, a special AMA session was held in the KuCoin Exchange Group with Johnny Lyu, the Chief Executive Officer of KuCoin.

Official Website: https://www.kucoin.com

Whitepaper: https://www.kcs.foundation/kcs-whitepaper.pdf

Follow KuCoin on Twitter and Discord.

Guest:

Johnny — CEO of KuCoin Exchange

Q&A from KuCoin

Q: Rumors were saying that KuCoin is insolvent because the platform suffered a lot in the collapse of LUNA. Some also say KuCoin is about to halt withdrawal. What is the real score of these issues?

Johnny: We have made it clear on Twitter that KuCoin has no exposure to LUNA (and wLUNA), 3AC, Babel, etc. So, no “immense suffering” from any “coin collapse,” no plan to halt withdrawal, and everything on KuCoin is operating well.

You can find more about my recent response here.

As a cryptocurrency exchange, our major source of income is the trading fee, not the gains from trading any altcoins.

Q: How about the rumors saying that KuCoin only has 300 bitcoin in its wallet?

Johnny: It has been proven that the image shows an inaccurate wallet balance.

This issue is caused by mislabeling on the blockchain. As I mentioned earlier, most on-chain tracking tools can hardly present the accurate balance of exchanges because many addresses are not labeled.

It’s simple. Glassnode has not previously tracked many KuCoin wallets, but they recently updated the BTC labels for KuCoin. We appreciate that.

Still, the current KuCoin BTC balance shown is underestimated as there are many KuCoin addresses not being labeled. But you can see that it is significantly higher than 300 BTC.

Kindly find more info from my recent tweet here.

Q: One user had made an unverified claim on Twitter that assets in KuCoin’s 14 wallets dropped from 1 billion to 10 million in a day. Is this true?

Johnny: It has also been proven wrong as the user miscalculated our wallet balance. A bug caused the misleading information on the analysis website.

The user who first posted it on Twitter has also realized the mistake and clarified it on Twitter. Find it here.

A few media outlets picked up this fake news, but as far as I know, most of them have deleted the news. So it’s a complete misreport.

Q: According to a tweet from Peckshield, 3AC has transferred over 40 million stablecoins to KuCoin. What can you say about that?

Johnny: It’s a mislabel.

After checking, the address does not belong to 3AC. Peckshield has also clarified this on Twitter. As mentioned before, we do not have any exposure to 3AC.

Q: Rumors were saying that KuCoin Ventures, an investor of Chingari, was dumping $2M GARI tokens, causing the recent drop in the token price. Kindly enlighten us about this issue.

Johnny: There’s no solid evidence showing that KuCoin Ventures caused the dump. However, to be fully transparent, we confirmed with KuCoin Ventures that they are indeed an early investor of Chingari, but not a very big one.

According to the token vesting agreement, only 100k GARI tokens have currently been unlocked (worth about $75K before the dump, not even close to $2M), and the rest will follow in a year.

Also, we confirmed that the KuCoin Ventures team didn’t sell any GARI tokens during the dump. So we hope we have now cleared up the circulating rumors.

Host: Thanks, Johnny. I can't believe there were so many rumors in a single week!

Johnny: I think FUDs are not just targeting KuCoin. We noticed that there had been a lot of rumors in the industry recently, and they have already plagued many companies.

KuCoin started in 2017, and we’ve been through a few bull-bear market cycles, and we find that the bear market is always a test of market confidence. So it’s natural for people to be more susceptible to this environment.

Unfortunately, the accountability mechanism for rumors in the Web 2.0 era is not mature enough, and the cost of spreading rumors is very low.

General users might make irrational decisions under the influence of rumors, so we encourage people to stay vigilant and check facts through the official channels of a platform and make rational judgments.

We also hope that the problem of traceability and accountability for rumors can be better solved with the development of Web 3.0.

Q: As you mentioned on Twitter, KuCoin is BUIDL no matter what. And the recent KuCoin 2022 H1 Review is a good report to recap what we have achieved. Could you give us a summary of this report?

Johnny: I would say the first half of 2022 for KuCoin is impressive.

Our volume and user growth continue to soar: KuCoin’s volume, including spot and futures trading, has exceeded $2 trillion, an increase of 180% compared to the same period in 2021.

We are breaking our highest daily volume record almost every quarter, and this May, the daily spot volume peaked at $11 billion, and the top daily futures volume was close to $23 billion. You can check this beautiful chart.

KuCoin gained 9.75 million new users during the first half, a 219% increase from the first half of 2021. As an industry-leading global exchange, KuCoin now serves more than 18 million users worldwide.

In case you missed it, KuCoin secured a $150 million pre-Series B fundraising in May at a $10 billion valuation. And the new capital and partners will solidify our strategy to go beyond centralized exchange and expand in Web 3.0!

A lot more growing figures can be found in this image. Please take a moment to check.

Q: In early 2022, KuCoin announced a Web 3.0 strategy. After several months, they were gone. What has KuCoin achieved in the Web 3.0 space?

Johnny: KuCoin is launching more innovative products to lower the barriers to exploring Web 3.0. In the past six (6) months, we have been putting our thoughts into words, and these words into actions.

First, we launched several Web 3.0-related products, including Wonderland, Windvane, and KuCoin wallet.

Wonderland is a platform to launch gaming NFT. Windvane is a brand new NFT Marketplace powered by KuCoin. And KuCoin Wallet is a decentralized wallet that already has 3 million users in like two (2) months!

In addition, the boom of the KCC ecosystem also facilitates KuCoin’s Web 3.0 strategy. Currently, there are over 40+ projects completed on-chain deployment. The number of KCC addresses exceeds 450,000.

Q: The knock-on effect of the crypto downturn triggered widespread layoffs across the industry. So how about KuCoin?

Johnny: At KuCoin, we always believe talent is the key to competitiveness.

We onboarded nearly 400 talents in the first half of 2022, bringing the total number of KuCoin staff to over 1,000 globally.

And we are sticking to our recruitment plan despite the current market downtrend, having around 300 openings in R&D, marketing, business development, and more.

If you want to join us, you can find all the openings here.

Free-Ask from KuCoin Community

Q: What are your top 3 things for priorities in 2022? Could you share some plans for the upcoming year?

Johnny: We have lots of things to BUIDL, and you are right. However, it's important to prioritize some of them. The top three are Web 3.0, KuCoin Futures, and KuCoin Earn. These are the things we will put more resources into the rest of the year to improve its experience significantly.

Q: For us KCS HODLers, are there any upcoming plans in the future that other non-holders could miss?

Johnny: Yes. As KCC is growing steadily, we are considering giving KCS more utilities beyond the KuCoin exchange. I cannot tell much at the moment, but if everything goes well, something interesting about KCS will be launched in late July or early August. Stay tuned!

Q: The current community and those who watch KuCoin understand their commitments and trust the team behind KuCoin. So how or what can KuCoin and its community do to deflect the FUD for potential users?

Johnny: I think it's simple. As I mentioned, BUIDLers will continue to BUIDL, while FUDers will keep FUD. So for KuCoin, we believe that by bringing good products and solid growth figures to the market, every smart person can make their own decision. FUDs cannot hurt us. So we will continue to BUIDL.

Q: Since NFT is popular nowadays, is there a plan for NFT integration?

Johnny: Yes. Currently, one of the biggest issues for NFT is liquidity. We are working on some solutions with our partners and will introduce something new in a few weeks to deal with the liquidity problem of NFTs.

Q: Most investors are focused on the price of a token in the short term rather than understanding the project's real value. Can you tell us the motivation and benefits for investors to hold your token long-term?

Johnny: I think there's nothing wrong with focusing on prices. It's human nature and a hard feeling to fight against. However, I've told many people that if they focus too much on short-term prices, they may not be able to profit big in crypto. Therefore, for most investors, and in many cases, HODL is the better strategy.

“If you are running a crypto business, keep #BUIDL no matter what. And if you are a crypto investor, keep learning no matter what!” - Johnny Lyu, the KuCoin CEO

Giveaway Section

KuCoin Exchange has prepared a total of 70 KCS to give away to AMA participants.