KuCoin is a centralized cryptocurrency exchange for trading digital assets, with added services for margin trading, margin lending, and over-the-counter deals. It launched in 2017, founded by Chun Gan, Ke Tang, and Johnny Lyu. The company started in China, moved its base to Singapore in 2018, and later registered in the Seychelles, where it is now based. As a centralized exchange, KuCoin holds customer assets on their behalf, a custodial model in which the platform controls the keys to crypto kept in a user's account rather than the user holding them directly. KuCoin is privately held and is not listed on any stock exchange.
The platform built its name on a wide catalog of listed tokens, including many smaller and newer coins that larger exchanges were slower to add, which drew traders looking for assets beyond the most common ones. Alongside spot trading it offers margin products and lending for more active traders.
KuCoin's history includes a major security breach. In September 2020 the company disclosed that roughly 281 million dollars in crypto assets had been stolen from its systems. The North Korean group known as Lazarus was later linked to the attack. KuCoin worked with other exchanges and project teams to trace and recover funds, and it has said it recovered about 222 million dollars, close to 78 percent of the stolen total.
The exchange has also faced regulatory and legal action in several places, and its availability is restricted in some major markets. In December 2023, KuCoin settled with the New York State Attorney General and agreed to stop its trading operations in New York. In March 2024, US prosecutors charged the company and its co-founders, Chun Gan and Ke Tang, in connection with running an unlicensed money transmitting business. In January 2025, KuCoin's operating entity admitted to operating an unlicensed money transmitting business and agreed to pay close to 300 million dollars in penalties; as part of that resolution it stepped back from the US market. In February 2026, an Austrian regulator barred KuCoin's local EU entity, KuCoin EU Exchange GmbH, from taking on new business. Rules and access differ by country and change over time, so check whether the platform is licensed and available in your own jurisdiction before signing up.