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KuCoin vs Binance: Full Review and Comparison by Good Crypto

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We continue our exchange comparison series, in which we match the largest and most reputable cryptocurrency exchanges against one another to assist GoodCrypto users in determining which exchange better suits their needs. Today we will focus on two popular and highly respected Asian cryptocurrency exchanges: Binance vs KuCoin.

Both crypto exchanges have a lot in common: hundreds of listed cryptocurrencies, including their native tokens. Both are convenient for trading and are full of trading features and investment tools suitable for any crypto enthusiast. However, there are many differences between these crypto heavyweights as well. So instead of reviewing them individually, we will compare these major players head-to-head to help you get a better idea of which cryptocurrency exchange is best for your needs and worthy of your attention.

Before we dive deeper into the Binance vs KuCoin review, here’s a quick side-by-side comparison summary of these platforms.

Features KuCoin Binance
Jurisdiction Seychelles Hong Kong S.A.R.
Year Founded 2017 2017
Proof of Reserves $2.45B $55.09B
Maker Fee/Taker Fee 0.1% / 0.1% 0.1% /0.1%
Markets (trading pairs) 1397 1661
Coins Supported 776 383
Fiat Supported 48 46
Margin Trading
Futures Trading
Trading Volume 24hrs $235,866,161.23 $5,669,085,493.59
Native Token KCS BNB
Mobile App
Trading in the US x via Binance.US
TradingView chart
Mandatory KYC
Fiat withdrawal to debit/credit card x
Payment Methods Accepted ACH Bank Transfer, Wire Transfer, PayPal, and Credit/Debit card, P2P. Sepa Bank Transfer, Debit/Credit card, P2P, Apple Pay, Simplex, Banxa.

KuCoin Exchange Overview

Speaking about KuCoin exchange, it is well-known as a leading competitor to Binance. It can boast of beginner-friendly UX, robust API, numerous altcoin markets, and other excellent features.

The exchange was founded in 2014, when the former CTO of one of the subsidiaries of Alibaba, Michael Gan, and the top manager of the iBOX PAY service, Jack Zu, launched the Kubi crypto exchange with headquarters in Beijing.

Since Chinese authorities have gradually tightened control over cryptocurrency transactions in mainland China, Gan and Zu were forced to relocate their organization to Hong Kong. Eventually, in 2017, they rebranded the company, which received its current name – KuCoin. In the same year, KuСoin conducted an ICO selling their ERC-20 native token KuCoin Shares (KCS), which brings many benefits for its holders, including trading fee discounts. These daily cryptocurrency dividends amount to 50% of the collected trading fees.

The exchange favorably differed from analogs, as it worked quickly, withdrew money as fast as possible, and had an efficient support service. Therefore, KuCoin has gained popularity and has taken the leading position in the global crypto market by 2022. KuCoin has been among the top ten global exchanges with over 20 million users worldwide, the largest daily trading volume for several years in a row. As of writing, the exchange’s 24-hour trade volume is $235,866,161.23. It has more than 776 coins listed, offers 1397 markets, and has deep liquidity.

KuCoin offers the ability to buy, sell, and trade cryptocurrencies and digital assets. Besides basic trading options, the platform provides margin, futures, and peer-to-peer (P2P) trading. Users can also stake or lend their crypto to earn extra rewards.

Even though KuCoin operates in over 200 countries, it is not licensed in the U.S. Therefore, many U.S. users’ choose the Binance.US exchange – the sister company to Binance. But what is Binance exchange?

Binance Review

Binance is the largest cryptocurrency trading exchange by volume that has reached the $5,669,085,493.59 level at the time of writing. It was launched in 2017 by a famous Chinese-Canadian software developer, Changpeng Zhao (CZ), after the successful ICO of the BNB token, which raised $15 million. It was initially launched in Hong Kong, China, but had to move its headquarters in early 2018 due to the Chinese government’s control and regulation. Now, it is Cayman Islands-based cryptocurrency exchange with an American counterpart, Binance.US.

Binance exchange has established itself as a trusted member of the crypto space with 90 million customers worldwide thathave over 776 coins listed, offer 1661 markets, and have the highest liquidity in the crypto space. It also serves as a blockchain network, a cryptocurrency wallet, a mining pool, an information hub, an educational resource, and many more services.

How Easy is it to Register and Verify?

KuCoin New Account: KuCoin Verification

Creating a new KuCoin account is a piece of cake.

However, to fully utilize the KuCoin exchange and enjoy additional features and benefits such as fiat deposits, higher daily withdrawals, fiat trading, and futures trading leverage limits, you must complete the KuCoin verification process first. Kucoin first implemented KYC in 2018 to fight against scams, fraud, and money laundering.

There are two KuCoin verification levels: Basic (KuCoin KYC1 verification) and Advanced (KuCoin KYC2).

To complete KYC1 Verification, you need to follow these simple steps:

Click on the Account icon and go to KYC verification. Then you’ll be redirected to the KuCoin Individual Verification page.

Click on the “Start Verification” button to submit your information.

Fill in your country or region of residence, first name, last name, ID type, and ID number, then click on the “Submit” button for the review. Usually, the result of KYC1 verification will be published in a couple of hours.

After completing KYC1, you can apply for KYC2 Verification to enjoy additional benefits on the KuCoin exchange.

Click on Start Verification once again, and you will be redirected to the following page:

Scan the QR code to download the KuCoin app, then open the app and tap the Scan icon to scan the second QR code.

Once scanned, you get to the Services and Limits page, where you must complete your Advanced identity verification.

  1. Click Verify, then read the User Identity verification Statement and Jumiu Privacy policy to understand how your personal data is used for KYC purposes. If you agree for your data to be used, click Agree and Confirm button.
  2. Check and confirm your personnel data and click Information is Correct to proceed.
  3. Now you need to provide a photo of your ID and complete face verification. Usually, it takes 3-4 min, so don’t worry about wasting a lot of your precious time.

Now you submit your information for review. KuCoin takes up to 2 working days to complete KYC2 KuCoin identity verification due to high demand.

So, what do you get with all KuCoin verification levels?

The table below compares the daily KuCoin withdrawal limits, fiat trading limits, and futures trading leverage limits for each verification level.

Withdrawal Limit Fiat Trading Limit Futures Trading Leverage
KuCoin Unverified Account

1 BTC in 24 hrs

0

Up to 5x

KuCoin Basic Verification (KYC 1)

1 BTC in 24 hrs

0

Up to 20x

KuCoin Advanced Verification (KYC 2)

200 BTC in 24 hrs

100K USDT in 24 hrs

Up to 100x

KuCoin verification is not essential but highly suggested since such KYC information will assist you in recovering your KuCoin account if you forget your platform credentials or your account is taken over by others due to the leakage of personal info. Moreover, it should take only 5-20 minutes to verify your KuCoin account, so we highly recommend you not skip this step.

KuCoin verification is optional but highly suggested since such KYC information will assist you in recovering your KuCoin account if you forget others take over your platform credentials or your account due to the leakage of personal info. Moreover, it should take only 5-20 minutes to verify your KuCoin account, so we recommend you not skip this step.

Binance New Account: Binance Verification

Before trading on Binance, users must also complete the registration procedure on the platform’s website. The whole process is straightforward, simple, and intuitive, but if you want to ensure that you are doing everything right, Binance has taken care of its users and prepared detailed instructions for them.

However, to access the site’s features and raise the trading and withdrawal limits of your Binance account, it is necessary to verify the client’s identity. Previously, users could withdraw up to 5 BTC per day without KYC. From August 19, 2021, KYC is mandatory for all Binance traders to fight illegal financial transactions and money laundering. Users whose accounts have not passed KYC may have their account permissions set to “Withdraw Only.” These accounts can only use services like withdrawal, order cancellation, position closing, and redemption. The system will offer to go through the KYC process immediately after registration. Otherwise, you will not be able to withdraw your funds at all. Let’s take a closer look at the Binance verification process.

There are three Binance verification levels: Verified, Verified Plus, and Enterprise Verification. The chart provided by the Binance help page shows the benefits that come with each verification tier level.

Information Required Features
Binance Verified
  • Personal information
  • Government-issued ID
  • Facial Recognition
  • $50K Daily Fiat Deposit & Withdrawal Limits
  • Unlimited Crypto Deposit 
  • 8M BUSD Daily Crypto Withdrawal Limit
  • Unlimited P2P Transaction Limit
  • Access to select Binance products, including Launchpad, OTC, Binance Card and more
Binance Verified Plus
  • Personal information
  • Government-issued ID
  • Facial Recognition
  • Proof of address
  • $2M Daily Fiat Deposit & Withdrawal Limits
  • Unlimited Crypto Deposit 
  • 8M BUSD Daily Crypto Withdrawal Limit
  • Unlimited P2P Transaction Limit
  • Access to most Binance products, including Launchpad, OTC, Binance Card and more
Binance Enterprise Account
  • All personal information from the Verified Plus tier required
  • Source of funds
  • >$2M Daily Fiat Deposit & Withdrawal Limits
  • Unlimited Crypto Deposit 
  • Unlimited Daily Crypto Withdrawal Limit
  • Access to the full suite of Binance products

If you are concerned about the question “how long does Binance verification take?”, we assure you that it should take no more than 5-20 minutes. However, waiting for your verification to be processed takes some time. Usually, the verification approval may take from 10 minutes to a few days.

Deposit And Withdrawal of Money

Once you have created an account on one of these exchanges, you must deposit your funds into the platform first to start trading. Let’s look at the deposit process of Kucoin and Binance and then smoothly proceed to the withdrawal procedure. We’ll start with a KuCoin deposit.

KuCoin Deposit / KuCoin Withdrawal

What makes a KuCoin an excellent entry point into the cryptocurrency world is the fact that it supports over 50 different global currencies, including HF, GEl, PEN, and others.

In a nutshell, the whole deposit procedure on KuCoin is pretty simple. However, you need to pay attention to a few points to guarantee that your money drops into your account swiftly and safely, so go through our guide to take advantage of them.

So how to deposit money in KuCoin?

KuCoin has a few ways to deposit fiat currencies to the exchange:

You can buy BTC, ETH, USDT, USDC, or KCS tokens using your Visa or Mastercard. However, there are better ways to deposit crypto, as it charges a 2% markup and has a limited payment amount of only $5000. So if you are a high roller, you’ll be forced to proceed with several transactions.

But what if you already have cryptocurrency on any other crypto platform or wallet? Then, you can deposit crypto into your KuCoin account with a snap of the fingers by following these simple steps:

  1. Click on the wallet icon at the upper right corner of the page and then click “Deposit”

Choose any coin you wish to deposit, find a suitable blockchain network, and then your public deposit address will appear.

Sometimes it takes some time for a transaction to pass, so you don’t need to be worried. Instead, relax and wait for a few minutes to make things happen.

! IMPORTANT NOTE:

When you are done with the depositing process, let’s move on to KuCoin withdrawals. Again, this procedure is just as simple as the previous one.

  1. Hit the Withdrawal option, choose a coin, fill in the public address, and choose the appropriate blockchain network.
  2. Finally, enter the amount of crypto you want to take out, and click the “Confirm” button to submit your request.
  3. The next and last step is to enter your trading password, email verification code, and 2FA code. Once you filled all the gaps and clicked the “Submit” button, you are all set.

To make things even easier, go to your Main Account and choose any crypto from the list.

! IMPORTANT NOTE: 

KuCoin offers five different types of accounts to create a more professional and better user environment. However, remember that you can only withdraw funds from your KuCoin Main Account or Trading Account, so make sure you move your assets to one of these accounts first.

KuCoin doesn’t charge deposit fees. However, it has set KuCoin withdrawal fees that depend on the cryptocurrency market’s performance. For example, USDT withdrawal fees range from 0.1 to 25 USDT. Here is the preview of the Kucoin withdrawal fees:

KuCoin withdrawal fee rate

A major drawback of the KuCoin exchange is that there is no method to withdraw fiat to your bank account. Binance, on the contrary, is one of the most convenient exchanges where you can sell for cash and withdraw your fiat to a bank account or spend it with the Binance card in regions where it is supported. On this note, let’s dive deeper into the Binance deposit and withdrawal processes.

Binance Deposit / Binance Withdrawal

Depositing crypto to your Binance account is relatively straightforward. Go to Wallet, then Overview, and click the yellow Deposit button.

Once you click, you will see the following deposit options:

In general, you have four different ways to deposit money into your Binance account.

As for the crypto deposit, you may choose from the following options:

As for the withdrawal process, it’s actually as simple as the depositing one.

  1. First, choose the Withdrawal option and the asset you want to withdraw.

    2. Then copy and paste the deposit address of the receiver and choose the matching blockchain network

! IMPORTANT NOTE: Make sure you selected the same network of the platform you are withdrawing funds to; otherwise, you will lose your funds.

Types of Trading

KuCoin Spot Trading vs Spot Trading on Binance

Binance and KuCoin are excellent platforms for traders who want to take advantage of spot trading markets. They offer access to an incredible selection of coins for spot trading, and people will find almost any popular altcoin on both exchanges. However, KuCoin offers 760 coins, leaving Binance Exchange with 390 coins right behind.

Despite this, Binance remains the exchange with the highest liquidity score and impressive trading volume ($20,558,329,826.06 at the time of writing), making it more appealing to traders who want their orders filled with a snap of the fingers.

As for Binance and KuCoin trading panels, they both rock. Platforms have a simple trading screen that is great for both seasoned and newbie traders.

Panel for spot trading on KuCoin

Binance trading panel

Both platforms burst with various charting tools and order types, including limit orders, market orders, stop-limit, stop-market, and one-cancels-the-other (OCO) orders. Nevertheless, one of the most striking distinctions between KuCoin and Binance is automated trading. While Binance offers a grid bot for futures trading only, KuCoin provides five trading bot strategies:

However, to get much broader functionality and customization options for trading on these platforms, you should refer to the GoodCrypto app. Here you can attach Stop Loss and Take Profit combos, trade with advanced Trailing Stop orders with no balance freeze, launch trading bots on any exchange out of 35 exchanges at the same time, and enjoy a variety of other sophisticated trading tools and features that will take your trading to the next level.

Trade in Profit with Advanced Trading Tools

Let’s move on to the next type of trading available on both exchanges – margin trading

KuCoin Margin Trading vs Binance Margin Trading

Margin trading is a type of trading that allows you to borrow money from an exchange or other traders to leverage up your trades. Other traders are willing to lend you their money because you pay interest on it, and the higher the demand for a specific coin, the higher the interest. So it’s a win-win situation for each market player. However, we must mention that margin trades are best suited for seasoned traders with the skills to apply high-risk-high-reward trading strategies.e

Both platforms support Cross Margin trading and Isolated Margin trading:

In Binance exchange, margin traders have access to 3x to 10x leverage on the assets provided by the platform. The leverage ratio depends on whether you use an isolated margin or cross-margin mode. As for KuCoin, the borrower has a maximum leverage of 5x in the Cross Margin mode, which is a bit higher than Binance, and 10x in the isolated margin mode.

What does it actually mean? Let’s say you have 100 SOL in your KuCoin margin account. With 5x leverage, you can borrow up to 400 SOL, increasing your available funds to 500 SOL. You can borrow more or less money to leverage your position depending on how much money you have in your account.

KuCoin margin fees and Binance margin fees are the same as spot trading. According to the trading fee rates, we can see that Binance has a more favorable margin fee structure.

If you want to increase your Binance or KuCoin leverage to higher than x10, you need to go into futures trading.

KuCoin Futures vs Binance Futures Trading

The core of Binance and KuCoin futures trading is the same: people buy or sell an agreement to buy or sell an underlying asset in the future at a predetermined price. It’s kind of the same as margin trading, except you don’t use a real asset while buying and selling. You just buy a candy wrapper with higher leverage.

The Binance futures markets allow traders to trade crypto derivatives for dozens of perpetual contracts for different coins and tokens and make a profit as high as 125x. These contracts come in four types:

As for KuCoin futures, traders can profit by using up to 100x leverage. In addition, the platform offers four different types of futures trading as well:

If you are going to trade on futures, Binance is a clear winner in terms of fair fees, as it has a better taker fee than KuCoin, but we’ll come to this part a bit later.

Now let’s move on to KuCoin vs Binance p2p trading.

KuCoin p2p vs Binance p2p

KuCoin and Binance both have a marketplace for peer-to-peer (p2p) trading between users without relying on intermediaries, which is a significant advantage for both platforms. These peer-to-peer markets open up a wide range of payment options, with almost any bank and Wallet available. In addition, an automated escrow mechanism ensures the honesty of transactions in this type of trading.

Here is the list of cryptos that can be bought or sold on Binance and KuCoin exchanges:

KuCoin and Binance allow you to purchase crypto with your local currency via P2P. KuCoin supports purchasing or exchanging your USDT, BTC, ETH, KSC, and USDC for more than 30 fiat currencies, including USD, AUD, EUR, UAH, and PHP. In addition, Binance currently offers users to buy or exchange more than 34 fiat currencies for USDT, BTC, BUSD, BNB, ETH, UAH, and SHIB.

One of the significant benefits of both platforms is that if you’re a Taker, you can buy or sell cryptocurrency via the p2p method without paying any fees. However, Binance applies P2P transaction fees to Makers.

KuCoin Staking vs Binance Staking

Staking is a great option to increase the value of your holdings and earn extra passive income. It is the process of temporarily storing your crypto on a Proof of Stake (PoS) blockchain.

Binance offers staking for various coins and provides its users with great staking support. It runs many staking pools itself, and you can easily select between available coin offerings and choose from the flexible or locked periods of 21, 30, 60, 90, or even 120 days. Once you have selected the coin, the staking rate changes.

KuCoin doesn’t offer staking for a wide range of coins; Binance certainly wins this battle. However, you can choose from various “smaller” coins with a higher Annual Percentage Rate (APR) for staking on the KuCoin exchange.

You can also earn interest in your Ethereum and participate in ETH 2.0 staking through both platforms.

Overall, staking cryptocurrency on both Binance and KuCoin exchanges is a profitable and simple way to earn passive income from your crypto holdings. Nevertheless, Binance provides higher staking rates, which is more attractive for investors.

KuCoin Lending vs Binance Lending

If you have some crypto sitting in your exchange account, why put it to work for you and reach a high APY?

Crypto lending allows you to lend your assets to earn passive income flexibly. This is the provision of crypto loans by some users to others. In this case, the lender receives a percentage from the borrower for using his funds, and the exchange charges him a special commission. In turn, borrowing allows traders to use funds put up by a third party to conduct trading activities if they don’t want to sell their own assets. Both exchanges have strong products in this field.

Kucoin supports over 140 different types of cryptocurrency, including USDT, ETH, BTC, and others.

Lenders can set an expected APY, and all open lending orders are visible to the market. Borrowers can look over orders and borrow from those that meet their needs. You can choose between Normal or Auto Lend. KuCoin Normal Lend allows you to set your desired daily interest rate, while with KuCoin Auto Lend, available funds will be lent out automatically.

If you are looking to lend your assets on the Binance exchange, you can do so by subscribing your Tokens into Simple Earn products. For Lending specifically, it is under the Flexible product. Meanwhile, the Locked product is mainly for Staking.

However, if you are interested in borrowing funds, you can proceed to the Crypto Loans page. Here you can borrow any of the 95 available assets from Binance and confirm the borrowable amount, collateral, interest, repayment, and more.

Binance Lending and KuCoin Lending are lucrative services that enable users to lend or borrow coins to make an additional passive profit. However, Binance Lending has higher liquidity for borrowers and more lucrative rates for lenders.

Binance Earn vs. KuCoin Earn

In addition to lending and staking, both platforms offer plenty of other features to earn passive income. Let’s take a look at some more Earn products on each platform.

Kucoin Earn features:

Binance Earn features:

As you can see, both platforms have different ways and options for their users to earn crypto passive income.
Now, let’s compare KuCoin vs. Binance fees side-by-side.

KuCoin Fees vs. Binance Fees

When it comes to KuCoin vs Binance fees, both have one of the lowest fees on the market. Both crypto exchanges have a tiered maker/taker fee structure, starting their trading fees at 0,1%, and both give you a discount on your fees when you pay with their native token.

Binance offers a substantial fee discount: a 25% discount for paying in BNB, which reduces your trading fees to 0.075%. Talking about KuCoin trading fees, you’ll need to pay with their KCS native token to get the 20% fee discount. Yes, it’s a little bit lower than on Binance, but with KuCoin native tokens, you can get additional benefits, such as daily rewards just for holding KSC in your account. Of course, such dividends depend on how much KSC you hold. For BNB, you can also take advantage of Binance’s quarterly token burns.

Spot Fees
Maker/Taker
Futures Fees Deposit Fees Withdrawal Fees Debit/Credit Card
Instant Buy Fees
KuCoin 0.1%/0,1% 0.02%/0.06%
  • Crypto: no fee
  • Fiat: Bank Card (Visa/MC): 3.80% Fee Rate.

2%

Binance 0.1%/0,1% 0.02%/0.0400%
  • Crypto: no fee
  • Fiat: your bank’s fee
  • Crypto: $1-$15
  • Fiat: $1-$15
3.99%

From this comparison table, it’s clear that Binance wins this fight with a better fee structure and more favorable ​​trading fees.

Is KuCoin Safe? / Is Binance Safe?

Even though KuCoin and Binance have many security measures, neither exchange has a spotless record regarding hacks.

As for KuCoin security, there was a major hack in 2020 when over $280 million of funds were stolen from consumers’ hot wallets. It became one of the largest security breaches in cryptocurrency history. Fortunately, no KuCoin user lost their hard-earned money as all the funds were insured, but a security failure of this size still concerns many crypto go-getters.

Despite this incident, the KuCoin cryptocurrency exchange is considered one of the most secure exchanges to date, and it’s not surprising. Just take a look at the variety of options available on KuCoin to ensure your account is safe and secure:

Considering Binance’s security, faith in the safety of this exchange was shaken in early 2019 when a massive $100 million hack hit it. Moreover, this large-scale security breach leaked many user API keys, 2FA codes, and other personal info. However, Binance acted quickly, conducted a thorough security review, and used the Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU) to cover this incident thoroughly. Thus, the funds of all users were restored and unharmed.

Here are all the measures to enhance security for your Binance account:

          – Biometric Authentication/Security Key
          – Binance/Google Authenticator
          – Phone Number Verification
          – Email Address Verification

Binance and Kucoin Proof-of-Reserves (PoR)

The collapse of FTX has rocked the crypto industry and made people doubt the honesty of crypto companies. As a result, other exchanges have introduced a Proof-of-Reserves (PoR) trend as proof that a business is a solvent and liquid enough exchange to continue trading.

PoR is an independent audit conducted by a third party to verify that a custodian (such as a Binance or KuCoin) actually owns the assets it claims to have.

Fortunately, Binance and KuCoin have maintained enough funds to cover users’ assets at a 1:1 ratio, allowing users to verify their asset holdings. You can do it straight from your KuCoin account or Binance account.

Final Thoughts

So, does the Binance logo or KuCoin logo win this battle? It’s hard to say for a hundred percent. However, these two well-established crypto exchanges have a lot in common: they use a similar business strategy, have a similar fee structure, offer a wide range of assets, have a high level of security, and provide good customer support.

There are slight differences between the platforms. However, Binance really shines because it has a fiat off-ramp and debit card that may attract many crypto users. Moreover, Binance can cater to the US market through Binance.US.

As for KuCoin, it’s the best Binance alternative. Many traders prefer this exchange for its trading bots, extensive altcoin support, and gamified trading entertainment. However, one significant drawback is that KuCoin is unavailable in the United States.

Despite these facts, both Binance and KuCoin are safe, highly reputable exchanges that are fully packed with features and interesting options that attract millions of people worldwide. We hope this article helped you decide which exchange is right for your needs.

However, if you want to enhance your trading experience on KuCoin or Binance, try the GoodCrypto app. This cutting-edge, all-in-one trading and portfolio management app with the friendliest UI/UX creates the most manageable environment for trading that combines all your exchange accounts into one place and allows you to trade anytime and anywhere you go:

Use Good Crypto on iOS or Android to improve your trading experience on leading crypto exchanges, including KuCoin or Binance.