KuCoin in 2021 Annual Review

2022/01/21 10:00:00

2021 has brought huge surprises to the crypto industry. The price of Bitcoin had a gain of 60% and surpassed $1 trillion in market value for the first time. ETH had a nearly 392% price increase with the surge of NFT and Metaverse. As more mainstream media and regulators are focusing on the crypto industry, wider crypto adoption is anticipated in 2022.

This year, the KuCoin platform also had exponential growth in different aspects, from over 3100% price rally of KCS, 300+ new listings on the platform, to the breaking of 10 Million user numbers. This blog will take you through the key milestones achieved by KuCoin over 2021 and share the future outlook of KuCoin and the crypto industry.

Growth by Numbers

Trading Volume

Data doesn't lie. KuCoin's cumulative trading volume exceeded $1 trillion (Spot & Futures trading), and the average daily trading volume reached $3 billion, an increase of 11x year-on-year. It is worth mentioning that on December 4, 2021, KuCoin's 24H trading volume broke a new record of $13 billion.

The market share of KuCoin has also greatly improved. KuCoin's Spot market share rose from 1.42% at the beginning of the year to the current level of 6.79%, while KuCoin Futures also expanded from 0.48% at the beginning of the year to the current level of 3.09%. In this bull run, we are delighted to see that KuCoin's growth speed outperformed the industry average.

(Source: KuCoin, Coingecko)

User

One of our most exciting milestones in 2021 is breaking 10 million registered users by the end of November 2021. With the scrambling of institutional and retail investors into the crypto market, KuCoin users increased by 1100% year-on-year, especially in Asia and Europe, with 21.5% and 16.8% rise, respectively. KuCoin will continue to promote its globalization strategy and bring simple, easy-to-use, and secure crypto services to more global users.

KCS

As the native token of KuCoin, the value of KCS is strongly correlated with KuCoin. Driven by the rapid development of the KuCoin ecosystem, KCS reached a new all-time high at $28.77 on December 1, 2021. In addition, KCS has risen by more than 31x, becoming one of the best performing exchange tokens.

(Source: CryptoDiffer)

KCS burn and adoption is the key driving force behind its value growth. To accelerate the KCS burn process and more efficiently adapt to market expansion, the KCS team adjusted the period of KCS buyback and burn from each quarter to each month since the beginning of January 2021. As of writing, a total of 3,113,482 KCS has been burnt this year, which is worth $37 million.

In addition, KCS is empowering a fast-growing decentralized ecosystem, thanks to the launch of KCC, the decentralized public chain with high performance built by KCS and KuCoin’s avid supporters from different communities. KCS can now be utilized in many ways, such as participating in the Mining and Staking projects like MojitoSwap. Over 2.5 million KCS have been migrated to the KCC ecosystem, with a total value of over $200 Million.

Trading Experience & Customer Service

As the ‘People’s Exchange’, KuCoin prioritizes user experience and offers the best customer services. Due to the overall growth of the KuCoin ecosystem, the number of customer requests online had a 10x increase in 2021.

To meet the exponential growth in user demands, KuCoin launched Answer Bots to offer more efficient customer service. The bots have served 80% of customers’ inquiries, and 70% of those users are well-helped without waiting for an agent.

In the meantime, with the optimized serving tools and upgraded customer service team, the average online service response time has been reduced to 55 seconds. In addition, Electronic KYC (E-KYC) has been launched in 20+ countries and regions for a faster & simpler verification process. More importantly, we have helped over 30,000 users retrieve their lost funds or mistaken deposits in 2021.

Team & Talents

As the KuCoin user number scales up, so does our team. In the past year, we have had 570 new employees on board. Currently, we have 700 employees in total across the globe, nearly doubled in size compared with the beginning of 2021.

It’s been a huge step forward since KuCoin was first established with merely 7 co-founders in 2017. If you are interested in crypto and KuCoin, click here to join us.

Products & Features

New Listings

As the top 1 altcoin exchange, KuCoin continuously finds the next crypto gem and offers high-quality crypto assets to investors. In 2021, 348 crypto assets were listed on KuCoin, amongst which 80 projects were world premieres. As of writing, KuCoin has listed over 630 tradable assets with 1100+ trading pairs.

In 2021, 9 crypto gems were launched on KuCoin Spotlight. Success has been proved with price surges, including Metaverse projects like Victoria VR (VR), GameFi star - Chumbi Valley (CHMB), and DeFi protocol of Polkadot ecosystem - Polkadex (PDEX), etc.

(Source: Happy Block)

In addition, BurningDrop, a new launchpool-like product, launched 30 projects this year, including fantomGO (FTG), Paribus (PBX), Earth Fund (1EARTH), XCAD Network (XCAD), Hord (HORD), and Clearpool (CPOOL), etc.

The frenzy of Meme tokens started in H1 2021, and KuCoin launched the tokens in the top list, including Doge (DOGE), SHIBA INU (SHIB), and Dogelon Mars (ELON). Since mid-August, Metaverse has been trendy, and the rebrand of Facebook to Meta pushed the fever to a new era. In reaction to it, KuCoin launched the first Metaverse Trading Board in September. So far, it has supported 19 Metaverse-related tokens, including Bloktopia (BLOK), The Sandbox (SAND), and Decentraland (MANA).

New Offerings

KuCoin Trading Bot. Since its launch in early 2021, KuCoin Trading Bot has been up and running for almost a year. This product has gained considerable attention and interest in whether in a bullish, bearish, or turbulent market, by offering the same convenience, time-saving, speed, and intelligence that make it stand out from the crowd of existing trading bots.

KuCoin Trading Bot is a free trading tool that can help users save time and energy while improving their profit. It is equivalent to configuring a 24/7, all-around bot butler for your trading strategy. KuCoin offers five types of Trading Bot strategies - Spot Grid, DCA, Futures Grid, Smart Rebalance, and Infinity Grid.

So far, 5.5 million trading bots have been created on KuCoin, with a total user revenue of over 149 million USDT. KuCoin Trading Bots currently support over 665 trading pairs in Spot trading and 79 trading pairs for Futures trading.

KuCoin Leveraged Token. Leveraged Tokens are essentially Spot tokens with an in-built leverage mechanism. The launch of the KuCoin Leverage Token marks KuCoin’s further expansion in the crypto derivatives market. Although featured with leverages, they have no liquidation risks or margin requirements, therefore, it has been a popular choice for investors to amplify gains. Since it debuted in April 2021, the monthly active users were up by 810% in December 2021, and the number of new participants has increased by 420%.

KuCoin Win. KuCoin Win is an innovative product that brings entertainment into the Crypto industry. It has been integrating diversified play-to-earn features into each project launched so far to bring more innovative investment experiences and game scenarios to each participant. This year, KuCoin Win has launched three games - LuckyRaffling, Guardian Star, and Slot Machine. Guardian Star has been one of the most popular projects this year for its creative play mode of NFT + Mystery Box. Participants can earn a limited edition NFT in the meantime. So far, Over 500,000 KuCoin users have joined KuCoin Win.

KuCoin Fiat Account. To bring blockchain to mass adoption, KuCoin has been dedicated to providing the easiest fiat on-ramp services. KuCoin Fiat Account aims to realize a better trading experience in a highly secure and efficient manner by smoothly connecting the indispensable technical infrastructures of fiat-to-crypto transfers via banks, digital wallets, payment gateways, and exchanges. Users can deposit USD to their KuCoin Main accounts using a credit card or debit card and then follow simple steps to purchase crypto assets such as BTC, ETH, USDT, etc., on the "Fast Buy" interface. The advantage of the KuCoin Fiat Account is obvious - lower fees, simpler steps, and faster deposits.

KuCoin Pool. KuCoin Pool was introduced around Q4 2021 with the first launch of BTC mining. ETH mining service made its debut a month later. The KuCoin Pool platform offers top-notch crypto mining services for PoW mining by allowing them to integrate individual hashrate for a stable and sustainable mining reward in return. BTC hashrate had a 400% increase in one month, with a peak hash rate reaching 788p after the launch. ETH hashrate had a 300% growth in November and surpassed 603G at its peak.

Social Trading. Another milestone of KuCoin in 2021 is that we are transforming into the first and largest social trading platform within the crypto industry. Social trading features have been available for whitelisted users since October 2021. KuCoin users are able to experience the brand new social features before the official launch of the KuCoin App, including crypto news feed, recommended portfolios, trading strategies sharing and copy trading, etc.

(Source: KuCoin S)

Partnerships & CSR

KuCoin X Bloktopia

Bloktopia is a blockchain-based gaming platform aiming for a metaverse-based economy. In November 2021, KuCoin reached cooperation with Bloktopia to jointly improve the development of the Metaverse ecosystem. We also launched a virtual office inside Bloktopia’s platform, which is designed as a skyscraper. The virtual building has 21 levels in recognition of the total supply of 21 million Bitcoin. For KuCoin, this virtual office is a significant milestone towards the virtual world.

(Source: Bloktopia)

KuCoin X Chainlink

On December 14, 2021, we made a partnership with Chainlink, the industry-leading decentralized oracle network, by integrating Chainlink Price Feeds to bring high-quality price reference data to our Over-the-Counter (OTC) markets. We now have access to accurate, tamper-proof exchange rates between various fiat currencies and cryptocurrencies, which will help set floating rates in OTC markets. We have integrated the INR/USD and USDT/USD Chainlink Price Feeds as the first step, with more to launch in the future to meet growing user demand.

(Source: KuCoin, Chainlink)

Partnered With Cashaa to Combat COVID-19

As the COVID-19 in India has continued to deteriorate, KuCoin initiated a Special Charity Fund in April 2021 with a ₹10 million donation to a local NGO to address the challenges encountered by Indian citizens. On May 17, 2021, we partnered with the local crypto bank Cashaa to donate ₹2 million worth of food and supplies to Indian citizens to help them fight against the outbreak of COVID-19. Wheat, rice, dal, and salt have been distributed to citizens of Jaipur, Delhi, Patna, etc., helping them get through the most difficult time.

(Source: KuCoin)

Investment & Research

The KuCoin investment and incubation program has been initiated since May 2018. In April 2021, the program was upgraded, and KuCoin Labs - our crypto market analysis and research institution, was launched. At the same time, we established a $50 million fund to find the next crypto gem and empower the development of early-stage crypto projects.

(Source: KuCoin Labs)

As the investment and research force of the KuCoin ecosystem, KuCoin Labs aims to diversify and intensify investments into projects at an early stage to help more BUIDLers achieve sustainable growth and success in the decentralized world. In 2021, KuCoin Labs deployed strategic layouts in multiple popular ecosystems such as Ethereum, Polygon, Avalanche, Solana, BSC, Terra, and Secret network. In addition, KuCoin Labs has made cross-industry investments in promising blockchain projects categorized in crypto infrastructure, DeFi, NFT, GameFi, SocialFi, Metaverse, DAO, DEX, etc.

So far, KuCoin Labs has joined hands with over 20 well-known investment institutions, crypto companies, and projects such as AU21, GBV, Launchpool, Maven Capital, NGC, Shima, Skyman, BocaChia, DaoSquare, DFG, Jsquare, Kyros, MahaDAO, Near Polkastarter, SVC, TokenInsight, HashKey, Hashed, IOSG, NGC, and A16Z to empower the development of the KuCoin ecosystem and further accelerate the crypto industry.

In addition, KuCoin Labs has a group of research experts who provide their industrial insights, market sensitivity, and detailed explorations to the sustainable development of the crypto industry and KuCoin ecosystem. KuCoin Labs has released six industry market research projects throughout the year. These reports contain in-depth analysis of the best trending crypto topics in 2021, including NFT, DeFi, GameFi, and Metaverse, and major industry events such as Ethereum's London upgrade and the crypto regulations, etc. as a great reference for further investment and research.

Forward and Onwards

In 2022, as more newcomers are flooding into the crypto industry, KuCoin will continue to enrich our one-stop crypto services for different levels of users. The crypto world is full of talents and innovations. Whether you’re an investor, developer, game player, or learner, you’ll find tailor-made services that best suit your needs here.

At the same time, KuCoin will keep exploring more crypto gems in 2022 and keep you updated on the best promising tokens that are worth your attention. Next year will also be a year towards more decentralization, and KCC, which is built by the fan communities of KCS and KuCoin, might be another great place for you to hunt for gems.

In addition, we will further enrich the ecosystem of KuCoin this year by expanding our decentralized products and services, including wallets, NFT markets, GameFi and Social Fi. Besides, we will continue to lead the development of trending crypto sections such as Web3.0 and Metaverse by exploring and incubating more promising crypto projects. We will keep optimizing KuCoin’s overall market expansion and R&D strategies to further facilitate and speed up the growth of the KuCoin ecosystem.

Last but not least, to make KuCoin a better trading place for everyone, we expect to hear more from our community members and have you on board to work with us! If you are into crypto and share the desire to build a better KuCoin like us, please keep in contact via communities and social media platforms. We hope to see you soon, and together, we can create a better crypto future.