Kucoin is one of a handful of multicoin exchanges that appeared in 2017 and immediately grabbed a considerable swathe of the market.  They have branded themselves as the “people’s exchange” due I think to their offering of Kucoin Shares, KCS, a coin which can be traded on the exchange and offers a percentage of KuCoin’s monthly revenue.  People’s Exchange is an interesting way to brand your ICO, but I suppose it is a people’s exchange the same way that any publicly traded company is a people’s company (only absent regulation, oversight, consumer protection, etc – but we digress).  

Though Kucoin does not have the massive trading volume of the large fiat-accepting exchanges, nor does it come close to altcoin monsters like Binance, there are a number of reasons one might decide to trade with Kucoin in and of its own right:

1. It can handle its customers.  Binance and the like have proven unable to cope with massive influx in traffic, and support and security has arguably suffered as a result.  No such issues with Kucoin as of this article’s publishing.
2. They offer good volumes on some small cap alts you might be interested in that are not featured elsewhere, and they often pair launches with generous giveaways.  
3. As of now, there is no KYC required for withdrawals.  There is a tab for account verification so we assume establishing a KYC for certain withdrawal amounts might someday be enacted.  

Platform

Get your account set up with your email and a password.  In order to withdraw, you will need to set-up two-factor authentication on  your account, so might as well take care of that out of the gate.

Deposits are enabled in like 100 different altcoins, ditto withdrawal.  At the moment, no additional information is required to deposit or withdraw.  Withdrawals are processed by Kucoin within 30 minutes, and then transfer time is dictated by the network of the relevant altcoin.

Once your account is credited, a click on the markets tab gives an intuitive layout of all the different coins available.  Kucoin offers markets in btc, eth, neo, usdt, kcs, and bch. Trading volumes are shown in both the specific altcoin and USD.  The information and coins displayed are adjustable, and you can add coins to favorites for convenience. You can quickly buy or sell market orders directly from this interface, or click on the trade icon to redirect to the exchange.

The trading platform has charting integrated by tradingview which is better than the charts built in house by much competition and the order book has some decent depth, particularly on their most popular pairs.  

You can create limit orders simply by playing with the price offered on the trading slip.  However, a big, glaring negative on the Kucoin platform is a lack of stop loss, not to mention additional order types that would really help increase the attractiveness of Kucoin.  For day traders that like to play around with alts, the lack of stop loss is a big issue, and Kucoin would do well to address this ASAP.

You might be better off elsewhere if:

You are a day trader.  

Alt day traders probably are not going to want to risk trading without stop loss and take profit functionalities.  Better off going with Binance or even Bitfinex, if you are not trading the small cap coins.

You want leverage.  

BitMex offers leverage on a small selection of altcoins, and is a superior product with industry leading volumes.  If you are ok trading alt derivatives (and aren’t buying to hold) it is a better option.

You scare easy.

Yes, Kucoin has not yet been hacked.  But they are a newcomer and have not really faced any real tests.  No idea how they would handle a serious challenge – check out our picks for the best altcoin exchanges if you want to shop around.

Bottom line

Kucoin’s main advantage is that it offers some small caps that are not offered elsewhere.  This is not in our opinion a sustainable business model in a market that is currently seeing regulators becoming more unfavorable to speculative alts.  In order to survive, Kucoin will need to improve its product and focus more on building real liquidity and platform value and less pumping its own coin and getting fees from sh*tcoin airdrops.