Trading crypto is an exciting lifestyle. If you have a profitable strategy, you can end up turning a small account into a small fortune during periods of high price volatility in the market. To make it as a successful trader, you need the training, platform, and tools required to trade the international crypto markets.
Regardless of whether you’re a newbie to trading or a seasoned professional, your trading platform makes the most significant difference to your success. Crypto exchanges that offer you a functional platform, low fees, excellent support, and plenty of markets with excellent liquidity are ever traders dream.
However, finding an exchange that is good at all those factors is challenging. Some are only good at a few, and it’s not easy to find an exchange that does everything well. Exchanges typically focus on a niche of the market and create an offering around capturing that niche.
Therefore, you need to research your choice of crypto exchange before you sign up. Blindly signing up for the wrong platform for your strategy might cause you unnecessary losses.
In this review, we’re going to look at two of the best exchanges for trading crypto – KuCoin Vs. Binance. We’ll pit them against each other in a head-to-head battle to see which one comes out as the preferred platform for your business.
What Do You Need to Know About KuCoin?
KuCoin had its official launch in 2017. However, the founding members of the team have a history of involvement with Blockchain projects since 2011. The founding partners honed the tech for the KuCoin platform over four years from 2013 to 2017, before eventually releasing it to market.
Michael Gan and Eric Don are the official founders of KuCoin and the media-facing partners of the 8-person management team controlling the fate of the business.
During its ICO, KuCoin sold 100-million KuCoin Shares (KCS), an ERC-20 registered token, for 0.000055 BTC apiece. The capital raise was good for $20-million in BTC at the time, which was one of the industry’s most impressive ICOs of the year, taking place over two weeks between August 13, 2017, to September 1, 2017.
What Do You Need to Know About Binance?
Binance is the project of flamboyant Chinese crypto millionaire “CZ.” Changpeng Zhao launched the platform in 2017, with an ICO raising $15-million in seed capital to launch the business. Binance grew quickly, and much faster than KuCoin.
It’s surprising to see the company’s performance since it’s launch. Comparing it to KuCoin, Binance has a far larger market share and the lion’s share of daily volume. However, both exchanges started at the same time and have a remarkably similar service offering. So, what makes Binance the better choice?
KuCoin Or Binance Market Is Bigger?
KuCoin is currently in the top 100 exchanges in terms of volume, with more than $58-million trading on the platform on an average day. It ranks as number 28 for liquidity, with nearly $10-million available. KuCoin operated in 421 markets and launched 2-months after Binance in August 2017. There is margin trading available on some pairs, with leverage of up to 5X.
With Binance, you have an exchange that sits as one of the “Big Four,” with a liquidity cushion of over $70-million. Binance trades around $6-billion of crypto each day, making it one of the top 5 exchanges for daily volume. Traders can choose between 612 markets on the platform, and margin trading is available.
Which One Is Cheaper? KuCoin Or Binance?
Binance and KuCoin share the same pricing strategy for transaction fees on the respective platforms. Both exchanges charge a flat rate of 0.1%, making them the lowest fees available in the crypto sector for buying and selling.
Binance and KuCoin don’t charge fees for deposits but charge 0.0005% for withdrawals. Both KuCoin and Binance offer platform tokens you can trade on the exchange. These platforms’ tokens come with 50% fewer fees than trading other tokens, amounting to 0.05% per trade for transaction fees.
Check out the KuCoin Share (KCS), and the Binance Token (BNB). Both markets have decent volume, but we find that the KuCoin Shares might take longer to settle after trades.
Accounts And Limits
With new platforms for online trading popping up daily, it can be hard to know just who to trust. Rates and cash out limits also vary from place to place. Cryptocurrency is always in a state of flux, but that doesn’t mean that you should have to worry about your safety. There are so many big players on the market which can make it hard to know which platform is right for you. To help you narrow down your choices and make comparisons easy, we want to take a closer look at the security and limits of Kucoin and Binance.
Kucoin Account Limits
One thing that is the same across all trading platforms is account limitations. The accounts fully verified will always have the highest trading limits when compared with other accounts. For Kucoin, an unverified account can trade or withdraw 5 BTC daily while a level one, or KYC1 also has the same limitations. There is a cash equivalent limit that varies depending on the currency. A level two or KYC2 has a limit of 200 to 3,000 BTC per day. As with lower-level accounts, the cash equivalent varies depending on the currency you plan to use to cash out.
Binance Account Limits
Like most exchanges only verified users are able to get access to the highest limits. Registration is free and will secure you a level 1 unverified account. At level one, you can withdraw or trade 2 BTC every 24 hours. Once you have fully verified your account, you will be a level 2. At level two you can withdraw or trade 100 BTC every 24 hours. The top tier, level 3, is reserved for whales, which will allow you to trade or withdraw higher than the 100 BTC limit of a level 2 account.
Kucoin Account Security
KuCoin uses very strong encryption on its platform which works to keep users’ information safe. The site also has security questions and safe words assigned to each account to improve their security efforts. There is also two-factor authentication which helps keep accounts safe from unauthorized logins. You can also set a trading password and further customize your account security settings to prevent unauthorized withdrawals and trades.
Binance Account Security
This platform offers sophisticated encryption which helps keep individual cryptocurrency exchange accounts safe. 8 character password is needed for each account which should be a mix of letter cases, numbers, and special characters. To improve their account protections, withdrawals are barred for 24 hours following any password changes. The platform also offers 2-factor authentication via Google and SMS. The platform also supports U2F for an even stronger level of protection. Users are able to view authorized devices from their account settings tool and remove any that they don’t recognize. IP tracking and account activity tracking are also available. The address management tool on the platform will give you greater control over where account funds can be withdrawn, including crypto wallets. the site has an Anti-phishing code features that allow you to have a unique authentication code included in every email. This will help you avoid spoors and fake mail that is just aimed at gaining access to your account. For advanced traders, you can limit the API to only whitelisted addresses.
Final Thoughts On Kucoin VS Binance
Binance and Kucoin are both very safe, reliable cryptocurrency trading platforms. The CEO of Binance, Changpeng Zhao has a very good track record in the world of cryptocurrency which adds more weight and security to the platform overall. Kucoin is a favorite among both new and veteran users due to the high limits and easy user interface. Both are great platforms if you are interested in getting crypto-trading.
Is KuCoin More User-Friendly Than Binance?
Both KuCoin and Binance are unregulated platforms. Therefore, if you want to trade or withdraw, you’ll need to do so in crypto, not fiat. Binance doesn’t accept US residents on its platform, and Americans will need to sign up with the Binance US platform to start trading. Binance US has nowhere near the same volume and liquidity as the original Binance exchange.
Both KuCoin and Binance offer customers a trading platform. However, Binance affords you two options when signing up – the basic or advanced package. Both packages feature charts and tools you need to make trades. However, the Advanced package offers a few more indicators and other technical trading tools to help you with your technical analysis.
KuCoin only has one option for a trading platform. However, we think that it works well, and there are enough technical analysis tools to help you use your charts to review price action and plan market movements.
Both Binance and KuCoin support two-factor authentication protocols, keeping your account safe from hackers. KuCoin has a solid reputation for security and has yet to experience any hack. However, in August 2019, Binance suffered a hack where cyber criminals made off with $40-million.
It’s not uncommon for the larger exchanges to be victims of hacks, and it’s a matter of when, not if, these institutions become targets of cybercriminals.
Still, both platforms do a good job of mitigating risk associated with potential hacks. Both platforms make use of cold storage wallets to keep most client funds out of the hot wallets on the site. Binance has also noticed that there are a growing number of phishing sites appearing online, especially after searching for the Binance login page on Google.
Can We Trade Via Mobile In KuCoin And Binance?
Both KuCoin and Binance have mobile trading apps available for Android and iOS devices. However, both the apps are very bare-bones compared to the full trading platforms. You don’t get access to the same number of tools on your charts, and the interface feels clunky and slow on both platforms.
Crypto trading is better at a desktop machine. Trying to navigate your way through the markets on your mobile device is possible, but it’s not optimal. Just because you can trade on your mobile device, it doesn’t mean that you should.
In the case of both Binance and KuCoin, we recommend the mobile platforms for watching price action or planning trades but leave the executions for your home PC or laptop.
KuCoin Or Binance Has Better Support?
Binance offers you customer support, but it’s not very good. They have a ticket support system, and that no way to treat margin traders when things go wrong. In most cases, Binance will get back to you within 24-hours.
Both Binance and KuCoin offer a great resource of information in DIY troubleshooting archives. Search for answers to your everyday problems and look up tutorials for the trading platform.
KuCoin does it right, offering traders access to a 24/7 live support chat over the Telegram app. The service is efficient, and the representatives we spoke to knew how to sort out our problem without redirecting us to a knowledge database.
The Verdict By Bitcoin Tester
As a trader, you need a platform that supports you. Based on the review above, if you’re a US trader, use KuCoin, and if you’re an international trader, try Binance. Both platforms offer you plenty of tools and utility, but KuCoin’s offering with TradingView charts is a nice touch.
If liquidity is your concern, then we recommend Binance as the best option, although the stories of trading bots making executions challenging are somewhat disturbing.
Overall, we would have to say that KuCoin has a slight edge, but both exchanges offer good platforms for crypto trading. IF we had to pick one, we would say that the Binance advanced platform is our favorite.
Binance Advanced Trading provides a clean dashboard that’s easy to customize. You get access to all the tools you need for technical analysis and great charts. The charts on the KuCoin platform are better, thanks to the integration with TradingView.
Your choice of using Binance or KuCoin is going to come down to your location, and your personal preference. However, both platforms offer a fully functional trading experience that beginners and professionals need to grow their crypto accounts.
When signing up, don’t forget to look into the referral programs, and earn platform tokens for referring your friends and fellow traders.