KuCoin in 2022 H1 Review

Pushing the limit is the theme of KuCoin in the first half of 2022. Despite the market downtrend, KuCoin has seen its trading volume exceeding $2 trillion, global userbase exceeding 18 million, and employees exceeding 1,000.

Thanks to the continuous growth, 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.

In this blog article, we will present the key figures about KuCoin’s robust growth, highlighting the major milestones we have achieved with our global communities.

Trading Volume

In the first half of 2022, KuCoin’s trading 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.

（Source: KuCoin）

Looking at different markets, Europe outperformed others in terms of the speed of growth, achieving a total volume of $481 billion with 381% growth compared with the same period last year. In Latin America, and Africa & the Middle East, a total volume of $453 billion and $392 billion have been achieved, and the growth rate is 189% and 152%, respectively.

Users

During the first half of 2022, KuCoin has gained approximately 9.75 million new registered users, a 219% increase from the first half of 2021. As an industry-leading global exchange, KuCoin now serves more than 18 million users worldwide.

Specifically, the growth in Asia is the most significant, with about 5.6 million new registered users, a year-on-year increase of 659%. Newly registered users in Latin America, Africa & the Middle East, and Europe increased by 216%, 152%, and 142%, respectively, compared to the same period in 2021.

Team & Talents

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

We believe that talent is the key to remain competitive in the crypto space, and KuCoin will stick to our hiring plan while others are doing layoffs. Relatively, we have a more compact and productive team compared to most other platforms of our size, which is why we still have room to expand our team.

We have around 300 openings at present in R&D, marketing, business development, and more. If you are interested, please check here.

Global Communities

As an exchange for, by, and of the people, the ‘People’s Exchange’ is developing a community where everyone can benefit from our growth and have their opinions heard. In 2022 H1, the 23 KuCoin global communities in multiple languages break 1 million in total members, making it one of the largest communities in crypto.

Customer Support

In 2022, KuCoin will continue to offer world-class customer support to our global users. In this period, we have handled over 500,000 customer inquiries via tickets and online chat. Also, more new tools were introduced to improve the support experience, for instance, the Chatbot launched in April has helped over 20,000 users to solve their issues, and the launch of the new KuCoin Help Center also makes it easier for everyone to get support when needed.

New Listings

As the Top 1 Altcoin Exchange, KuCoin persistently brings hidden gems to the world before anyone else. In H1 of 2022, KuCoin has listed 137 crypto assets, bringing the number of tradable assets on KuCoin to over 700.

It is worth noting that 31 out of the 137 tokens had their world premiere listing on KuCoin, including 5 projects on KuCoin Spotlight and 5 on KuCoin Burningdrop.

New Offerings

Fiat Trading Pairs: For the first time, KuCoin starts to support fiat trading pairs! Currently, we have supported BRL and EUR against major coins like BTC, ETH, and USDT. And more fiat pairs will follow.

（Source: KuCoin）

Isolated Margin: In February 2022, KuCoin launched the Isolated Margin service to supplement its trading offerings. As of now, over 70 tokens have been supported in Isolated Margin trading, making the total margin pairs over 200. Find more about margin trading here.

Convert Function: A simple Convert function is added to provide users the easiest way to trade with one click with 0 fees.

OCO Order: In June 2022, KuCoin introduced the One-Cancels-the-Other (OCO) order type, a pair of orders combining a stop-limit order and a limit maker order on the same side, to better help investors implement their trading strategies.

Earlier this year, we claimed that KuCoin will explore more in Web 3.0. We are putting our thoughts into words, and words into actions. Let’s take a look at KuCoin’s initiatives in Web 3.0 so far.

Wonderland: Launched in April 2022, Wonderland, a platform to launch gaming NFT, has completed the NFT sale for 4 projects. A total of 46,000 NFTs have been sold with over 1.5 million USDT in sales volume.

Windvane: KuCoin NFT Marketplace - Windvane is a one-stop platform that supports digital collections, artworks, and game consoles with functions including NFT mining, NFT marketplace, and NFT airdrop. After its launch in April, we have seen over 1 million signups on Windvane, and to further drive NFT adoption, a $100 Million Creators Fund was launched together with KuCoin Ventures.

KuCoin Wallet: Launched in June, KuCoin Wallet is a secure and easy-to-use crypto wallet that will support multiple chains. Over 3 million users have joined the public beta test of the wallet and we believe it will be the getaway for millions to enter the Web 3.0 world.

KCC: KuCoin Community Chain (KCC), which is built by fans of KCS and KuCoin's fan communities, has also seen promising growth in this H1:

· 110+ projects participated in the KCC Unicorn Contest, and 40+ completed on-chain deployment

· The number of KCC addresses exceeds 450,000

· The number of transfers on KCC exceeds 14.8 million

Currently, the KCC Validator Election is ongoing, and both institutions and users can apply to become validators to share the gas fee on KCC.

（Source: HappyBlock ）

KCS: Driven by the rapid growth of KuCoin and the KCC ecosystem, KCS adoption is on the rise. Currently, you can use KCS to join Staking, Liquidity Mining, Lending, and more. As a growing number of KCS is getting active on-chain, more use cases can be expected to further drive the demand of KCS.

（Source: KuCoin, KCC Explorer）

KuCoin Labs

As the research, investment, and incubation arm of KuCoin, KuCoin Labs invested in 19 crypto-native projects in 2022 H1 and 4 industry-leading crypto funds, with a total investment of about $20 million.

Among the categories, KuCoin Labs has led 7 projects covering GameFi, Infrastructure, Web 3.0, and other fields. In terms of industry research, KuCoin Labs produced five research reports, covering Cosmos ecology, Metaverse, NFT pricing, Fair Launch, game guild development, etc.

KuCoin Ventures

Though it started in late 2021, KuCoin Ventures is a rising star in the primary market. In 6 months, they have built connections with over 150+ investment institutions and foundations and invested in over 30 blockchain companies after rigorous due diligence. Find the latest KuCoin Ventures Portfolio below.

(Source: KuCoin Ventures)

Into the Cryptoverse Report

To uncover the development and adoption of blockchain in different countries, KuCoin started publishing the Into the Cryptoverse Report in 2022. A total of 6 reports were released in 2022 H1, covering the USA, Brazil, Nigeria, Germany, South Africa, and Turkey.

Together, stronger! We are actively looking for partners who share the same values as us.

KuCoin X Pyth

Bringing real-world data on-chain is one of the infrastructures of the DeFi world. KuCoin reached strategic cooperation with Pyth network, the next-generation Oracle platform. With the partnership, KuCoin provides the real-time prices of the spot market trading pairs to the Pyth network, bringing the crypto market price to the on-chain.

KuCoin X Windvane X NFT.NYC

KuCoin has partnered with one of the largest NFT Conferences, NFT.NYC. Together, we will create a comprehensive and highly compatible platform that will openly support mainstream NFT blockchains, allowing everyone to select all NFTs on KuCoin cross-chain aggregator and one-stop shopping for the world's top NFTs at Windvane.

(Source: KuCoin & Windvane)

#ThinkBeforeYouInvest

Crypto investment will be easier if you can #ThinkBeforeYouInvest. In 2022, KuCoin introduced the #ThinkBeforeYouInvest educational series, an initiative aiming at helping crypto beginners learn useful tips, identify scams, and start to DYOR (Do Your Own Research). More educational activities will be launched in the second half of the year.

We are happy to see that KuCoin’s rapid growth has been recognized by much major press, and here are some of them:

• The Ascent named KuCoin the Best Altcoin Exchanges for 2022.
• Forbes Advisor named KuCoin the Best Crypto Exchanges for 2022.

A true BUIDLer has no fear for a crypto winter. A cycle exists in all industries, but the ones who continue to learn and BUIDL no matter what will thrive at last. Being with the industry for 5 years, KuCoin never stops working on expanding the boundaries of crypto. We have plenty of plans to be implemented in the second half of the year, and let’s grow together to be prepared for the next bull run!