KuCoin in H1 2023: Sustaining Robust Growth

We’re halfway through 2023, and it’s been a rollercoaster ride of sorts. If 2022 taught us to face challenges and become more resilient, the first six months of the year have enforced our belief in innovation as a key measure of success.

While we saw the crypto market sentiment improve from the lows of 2022 in the early weeks of this year, we’ve got a long way to go to bounce back to the breakaway optimism seen during the 2021 bull run. The crypto market started the year on a positive note. However, the crypto market faced a pullback in May as regulatory concerns intensified. Bitcoin and other top cryptocurrencies experienced a decline in prices.

While the market conditions remained uncertain, a few bright sparks gave crypto enthusiasts much to cheer about. The arrival of OpenAI’s ChatGPT generated a boom in AI projects within the blockchain and crypto industries, and our users also fell in love with the potential of artificial intelligence. But more on that later. 

Let’s look at KuCoin’s key developments and achievements through H1 2023 and how we’ve grown. Here’s a sneak peek at how the People’s Exchange has honored our commitment to you, dear users, to help grow the global crypto community. 

KuCoin has enjoyed a solid start to 2023, and we plan to continue growing from strength to strength over the coming months and years. Here’s a look at some of our key growth figures. 

Registered KuCoin Users 

As one of the top five cryptocurrency exchanges globally, KuCoin’s user base has experienced 26% growth YoY, with our total number of registered users reaching 29 million as of June 2023. Our growing user base is a solid testament to our exemplary service and wide range of products catering to all kinds of crypto investors - from newbies and amateurs to professional traders. 

The LatAm region contributed the most to our growing user base over the past one year, recording 69% of growth in user base during this period. We also saw our user base jump across other key regions, such as Middle East & Africa (38%), Europe (34%), and Asia (28%), compared to H1 2022. 

The KuCoin Team 

Our talented team is one of the strongest pillars that have helped KuCoin become a world-class crypto exchange. In H1 2023, we improved the KuCoin global workforce by onboarding more than 300 new team members.

As the year progresses, we have plans to expand our team further as we strive to deliver more innovative offerings to our users and improve our overall productivity. The growing KuCoin team will also help us drive higher levels of engagement with the global crypto community overall. 

Despite the industry being in a corrective phase, we have maintained steady growth thanks to KuCoin's robust business strategy, which includes our talent reserve.

Check out all our current openings across Business Development, Customer Service, Design, Operations, Research & Development, and other functions. 

Global Communities

Speaking of communities, KuCoin has been at the forefront of building and maintaining global communities to understand what our users need and how to serve them better. With this in mind, we have established and fostered 24 global communities across various languages and geographical regions. Our global communities enjoy engagement from more than 1.5 million users as of June 2023, recording a growth of 20% since the beginning of 2023. The growth in English, Turkish, French, and Indian communities is particularly significant.

In H1 2023, KuCoin has witnessed remarkable achievements in terms of its social media following. We saw an increase of more than 246,800 followers on Twitter, reaching a total of 2.5M Twitter followers. From January to June 2023, we hosted over 60 Twitter Spaces with our partners in the crypto ecosystem, reflecting KuCoin's commitment to building a strong and supportive community while solidifying its position as a leading player.

Customer Support 

Our customer support has been another key strength that has helped us attract and retain users over the years and grow to the position we have achieved today. Our always-on, always accessible 24/7 customer service has helped resolve more than 600,000 queries between January and June 2023. 

Our AI-powered chatbot has further automated customer support and helped deliver a faster resolution of user queries. Launched in April 2022, the chatbot has addressed queries and assisted over 300,000 users till June 2023. This is one of our many endeavors to deliver the best possible experience when trading and investing in crypto on the KuCoin platform. 

KuCoin earlier this year launched a comprehensive set of anti-fraud measures to provide more security tools to prevent business scams. Besides the official contact verification, the newly added measures include advanced anti-phishing verification, and business wallet address verification, which significantly reduce the potential for fraud.

Most of the business wallet addresses of KuCoin would be able to be verified through the Official Media and Wallet Verification Portal. In instances if the scammer is impersonating a KuCoin official to offer a business proposal, at the last moment of the transfer, the official wallet address verifier will be effective to be used to prevent the scam from happening.

Proof of Reserves (PoR)

With the commitment to our community and self-regulated, KuCoin became one of the first among leading global crypto exchanges to publish its Proof of Reserves (PoR) data in late 2022 and We have been consistently updating on a monthly basis.

Since then, we have regularly updated our PoR information, assuring our users that their funds on KuCoin are SAFU and their assets are fully backed. Our latest snapshot taken on 30 Jun 2023 reveals a BTC reserve ratio of 104%, ETH reserve ratio of 115%, USDT reserve ratio of 105%, and USDC reserve ratio of 114%. The funds deposited by our users are backed by over a 1:1 collateralization ratio.

We also allow users to verify their assets via our Periodic Proof of Reserves feature after logging in to their accounts on our platform. 

Security at KuCoin: Bug Bounty Program and Comprehensive Security Measures

Additionally, at KuCoin the safety and security of our users are our top most priority. To further our commitment to keep our users safe we use industry-standard encryption algorithms to protect all sensitive data and assets, multi-factor authentication for all user accounts which adds an extra layer of security, we hold majority of our client’s funds in cold wallets to secure funds, conduct regular audits and penetration tests. We also announced the biggest bug bounty program among all the exchanges in partnership with cybersecurity company Hacken for $1M bug bounty awards. Here’s a glimpse of our advanced KuCoin security page that got revamped.

The crypto market innovates at a rapid pace when compared to the conventional technology or financial services sectors. As one of the leading names in the crypto industry, we must be just as fast in innovation to stay relevant to our users and the overall crypto community. 

Here’s a look at some of the new products, projects, tokens, and services we’ve launched on KuCoin during the first six months of 2023: 

Assets and New Listings 

As your go-to platform to find the next crypto gem, we’ve successfully listed 89 new assets from January to June 2023. This brings the total number of digital assets listed for trading on KuCoin to 794 and the total number of trading pairs supported on our platform to 1364.

As of June 2023, we have supported 26 projects on KuCoin Spotlight and 55 projects on KuCoin Burningdrop. 49 crypto projects had their world premiere listing on KuCoin in the first half of 2023. 

In April, KuCoin Spotlight, our token sale platform, returned with upgraded rules to ensure equitable participation and enhance the overall user experience. To amplify the excitement and reach a wider audience, a series of captivating promotions were launched, including teasers, flash airdrops, Instagram mini-game and quizzes, engaging with over a million followers on social media, effectively spreading the news and fostering active participation of the 25th token sale of SUI.

KuCoin Trading Bot 

Since early 2021, KuCoin Trading Bot has seen impressive growth, with 12 million trading bots created by users, showcasing their trust in our platform. The trading volume surpassed 5.7 billion USDT in H1 2023, highlighting the bot's effectiveness. With 700+ Spot trading pairs and 100+ Futures trading pairs, our platform caters to diverse preferences. KuCoin Trading Bot empowers users with advanced technology for profitable trading experiences.

To enhance the trading experience, we introduced Spot Grid AI Plus in H1 2023. More advanced than regular auto mode, AI Plus leverages artificial intelligence to further adjust parameters such as grid spacing and order amounts in real-time based on the coin price volatility, ensuring consistent profits for grid trading strategies. We also launched the Smart Rebalance Web Pro version, providing a streamlined interface for managing trading bots. Additional functionalities include adding and subtracting positions for the Martingale bot, offering users more flexibility and convenience.

KuCoin Pool 

KuCoin Pool achieved various significant milestones in the first half of the 2023, including the successful launch of new Cloud Mining program, Mining Savings product and LTC mining pool. The Bitcoin hashrate on KuCoin Pool now ranks top 10 among global mining pools. In H1 2023, hashrate sales on KuCoin Pool has grown by over 550%, demonstrating our strength in product innovation.

Looking ahead, KuCoin Pool plans to continuously optimize our cloud mining services, expand the mining pool business, enrich the mining product line, enhance user education and support, and lower the threshold for retail investors to participate in mining. The goal is to provide users with a diversified and high-quality mining ecosystem and contribute to the development of the cryptocurrency mining industry.

KuCoin Token (KCS) 

The 40th burn of KuCoin Token (KCS) was conducted in May 2023, marking the most recent token-burning undertaken by KuCoin, leaving current circulating supply to 96,794,195 KCS. The KCS token burn helps us support the value of KCS and provide higher value to KCS holders and highly engaged users on our platform. 

We have seen a stable growth in KCS adoption. The total number of KCS holders reached over 1.8 million by H1 2023. Users can hold KCS to access a wide variety of services on our platform, such as Staking, Liquidity Mining, and Lending, and enjoy discounts on trading fees.

KuCoin Community Chain (KCC) 

During the first half of 2023, KuCoin Community Chain (KCC) experienced significant growth and development. The total number of addresses on KCC increased by 23% to nearly 710,000, and the total transaction volume exceeded 20 million. Over 100 projects integrated or deployed on KCC, covering various areas such as DeFi, NFT, GameFi, and Web3.0 Infrastructures.

KCC made improvements to its underlying protocols, enabling the deployment of newer protocols like Account Abstraction. Additionally, KCC partnered with UniPass to facilitate direct interaction between users and KCC eco-projects through email accounts. The Gas Revenue Program was introduced, providing financial support to projects on KCC by reducing their financial pressure and offering up to 100% gas incentive. KCC also prioritized on-chain security measures through strategic partnerships with HackenProof, PeckShield, BlockSec, and Certik.

KuCoin Learn 

An exciting new product we’re gearing up to launch in the mid of this year is KuCoin Learn - our compilation of comprehensive guides on all you need to know before trading crypto. Spanning various categories such as Crypto, Blockchain, Trading, and Crash Courses, KuCoin Learn is your go-to resource online if you want to learn anything about the basics of cryptocurrencies, crypto trading, and investing in digital assets.

Last year June we launched our #ThinkBeforeYouInvest educational series to promote safe crypto trading practices and help users identify scams in the industry. The initiative aims to educate users on various safety tips, common scams, and the importance of conducting their own research before investing in crypto projects. The series covered topics such as account security, mobile device protection, KYC, difference in custodian and non-custodian wallets, and email phishing scams, among others. This effort aligns with KuCoin's commitment to user safety and security in the rapidly growing crypto investment market. The series is gaining momentum across our social media platforms as we are using a mix of infographics and blogs to improve our user’s general knowledge on how to be digitally safe.

KuCoin Ventures 

At KuCoin, we genuinely believe in blockchain technology’s potential to transform our lives. With this in mind, we have established KuCoin Ventures as an initiative to support upcoming and promising crypto industry projects, providing them with the necessary funding and other resources to grow and prosper. Since its inception in 2021, KuCoin Ventures has proudly backed more than 50+ companies. For more information on this, check out KuCoin Ventures’ investment portfolio.

KuCoin Labs 

While KuCoin Ventures is our investment initiative, we have also focused on research and incubation through KuCoin Labs. After investing around $15 million in 30 crypto projects and three blockchain funds through 2022, KuCoin Labs has successfully turned into incubation field and held its first season "The Astro Selection" Incubation Program, in which 8 projects were selected among 500+ applications to join the 8-week journey with industry leaders and top institutions.

Global Footprints

In the first half of 2023, KuCoin proudly sponsored, hosted, and formed valuable partnerships with over 20 prestigious offline events across multiple continents, including Paris Blockchain Week, Blockchance, Istanbul Fintech Week and Future Fest 2023. This strategic approach allowed us to expand our reach significantly, leaving a lasting impression on Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.

Demonstrating our commitment to thought leadership, our esteemed leaders actively engaged in 15 enlightening panels, collaborating with industry experts to delve into cutting-edge topics. By openly sharing their insights with crypto communities, they sparked meaningful conversations and fostered an atmosphere of knowledge exchange. Moreover, the KuCoin team has forged connections with over 100,000 crypto users, investors, partners, and institutions worldwide through these impactful events, cultivating a global network and positioning ourselves at the forefront of the crypto industry.

Market Research Reports

Keeping with the ongoing AI trend worldwide, KuCoin released the AI & Blockchain Tango report in May 2023, based on our user survey. It explored critical facets of user perception of artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain technology, their integration, and how AI could potentially impact the broader crypto industry. The report highlighted crypto investors’ emerging trends and interest in blockchain-based AI projects, other use cases that merged AI and blockchain technology, and AI’s potential for enhancing crypto trading. 

As a part of our glocal strategy, KuCoin also released the 10th and 11th editions of Into the Cryptoverse market report in H1 2023, focusing on crypto users in Pakistan and Germany respectively. The reports provide valuable insights into the current state of the crypto markets, including investor outlook, key trends, user preferences, and emerging opportunities. These reports also signify KuCoin's ongoing effort to understand market dynamics, investment trends, and the perception of digital assets. More reports in the series are expected to be published in the latter half of this year.

Bring Crypto from Geek to Mass Initiatives

In a unique collaboration merging crypto and rap culture, KuCoin joined forces with top French rapper Naps in his viral single "C'est Carré Le S”, celebrating World Music Day. The song has gained immense popularity, attracting 10 million views on YouTube as of June 2023. The partnership aimed to engage a wider audience by combining the influence of rap music with the crypto industry. Through this viral sensation, KuCoin successfully showcased its brand and services to a diverse audience, creating a buzz and leaving a lasting impact.

Recognition: KuCoin’s Awards

KuCoin is currently one of the top 5 crypto exchanges according to CoinMarketCap. Forbes also named KuCoin one of the Best Crypto Exchanges in 2023.

Other feathers we added to our cap in the first six months of this year include receiving an award from Finder’s as one of the best global crypto investment platforms in 2023. We also found ourselves among the top 50 of Hurun’s Global Unicorn List for 2023.

As mentioned, we continue to believe in the power of BUIDLing and HODLing through times of uncertainty. Even as we wait eagerly for the next crypto bull run, there’s no doubt we must continue to come together and support each other to drive the mainstream adoption of blockchain and crypto technologies. In addition to constant reveal of our proof-of-reserves and implementation of various security measures, KuCoin is also upgrading KYC authentication systems to prioritize user asset security, comply with global compliance requirements, and create a safer trading environment while ensuring user accounts' enhanced security.

With crypto at the forefront of several emerging tech trends like AI, AR and VR, and more, we must focus on fostering innovation and raising awareness. We want to empower and onboard the next billion crypto users, not just into the world of crypto trading but also in key sectors such as web3, metaverse, NFTs, GameFi, and more. 

Riding on the progress in the industry, KuCoin will be celebrating its 6th anniversary in the second half of 2023. This milestone serves as a reminder of our commitment to fostering innovation, driving mainstream adoption of blockchain, and empowering the next billion crypto users. Let’s hope the months ahead offer more reasons to cheer for the crypto industry. Until then, let’s keep BUIDLing and embrace the bright future together.