Poloniex vs KuCoin: Which Exchange has the Best Edge?
We have Poloniex, 16th in our crypto exchange rankings, squaring up against KuCoin in eighth. Which will offer better economic advantages? Where can you feel most secure trading your coins? And which cryptocurrency exchange offers better options for turning your fiat into crypto? Let’s get to it.
Fees
Poloniex Trading Fees
- Maker fee: 0.125%
- Taker fee: 0.125%
- Tron (TRX) holders can get a 25% discount on fees when paying in TRX
- Poloniex Plus members and high-volume traders can get 0% fees
- Depositing cryptocurrency is free
- Withdrawing cryptocurrency incurs a small network mining fee
- Full fee schedule here
KuCoin Fee Facts
- Maker fee: 0.1%
- Taker fee: 0.1%
- KuCoin Shares (KCS) holders can get 20% off their trading fees when paying in KCS
- KuCoin offers negative fees (refunds) to ultra-high-volume traders
- Crypto-withdrawals are charged a small fee in the same cryptocurrency
- Depositing cryptocurrency is free
- See the full fee schedule here
Winner: KuCoin is more economical.
Sign Up & KYC Experience
Starting Your Poloniex Account
- Go to Poloniex.com and click ‘Sign Up.’
- Provide your email address, password, and a referral code if applicable
- Accept the terms and conditions.
- Go to your emails, open the new email from Poloniex and click the link inside to verify.
- Log in on the new page.
- On the dashboard’s right side, click ‘get started’ where indicated in the image above.
- Provide all KYC-related information: name, date of birth, address, phone number, country/region.
- Start the ID verification process (passport, identity card, driver’s license)
- Provide a selfie (hold a piece of paper with the word Poloniex and today’s date on it for faster processing).
- Wait for verification (a few minutes up to a few days).
How To Join KuCoin
- Visit KuCoin.com and sign ‘Sign Up.’
- Give an email address and password.
- Go to your email and click the activation link from KuCoin.
- Connect to Google Authenticator on your mobile phone.
- Now pursue verification by clicking ‘Individual Verification’ in your dashboard.
- Give your name and residential information.
- Submit an ID document (passport preferred).
- Wait for verification upon which you can begin trading.
Users in the United States must report their trades to FATCA once the account value is over $12,000.
Winner: KuCoin and Poloniex offer a similar KYC-free service, but Poloniex offers more freedom.
Ease Of Use & Feel Of Website/App
The Poloniex Platform
- Unrestricted crypto trades without KYC verification (no fiat currency)
- Unlimited crypto deposits without KYC verification
- $10,000 per month withdrawals without KYC verification
- A native decentralized exchange called PoloniDEX
- Margin trading permitted
- Mining pools available
- Trading interface both stunning and easy to use
- Customer support is not highly rated but is available on social media, ticket system, or trollbox
- Quality mobile experience
- Referral scheme rewards users with 20% of their friends’ trading fees
KuCoin: Quality For The Community
- Highly legitimate
- User-friendly
- Aesthetically-pleasing iOS and Android service
- Great on-site and app navigation
- Easy to use
- Soft staking program for KCS
- A crypto-mining scheme
- Referral bonuses for introducing new users
Winner: Both are excellent, this is a tie.
Deposit Methods
Poloniex: Crypto-only
- Cryptocurrency deposits only in these coins:
No Fiat On KuCoin Either
- KuCoin is also crypto-only and supports over 260 different cryptocurrencies for deposit
Winner: It’s a tie.
Instant Buy Options (Buying with Credit or Debit Card)
Poloniex Purchases
- 16 different cryptocurrencies available to purchase (the same 16 as for deposits)
- Partnered with Simplex, allowing for credit card purchases
- Purchase costs are 3.5% of the credit card transaction or $10, whichever is greater (which will always be $10 until you order approximately $290 or more worth of crypto)
- Minimum purchase $50
- Maximum daily purchase $20,000
- Maximum monthly purchases $50,000
- 30 minutes purchase-to-delivery
KuCoin ‘Fast Buy’
- KuCoin offers a Fast Buy store for immediate purchases of Bitcoin, Ethereum, or Tether, in the following currencies:
- Australian Dollar
- Bangladeshi Taka
- Indonesian Rupiah
- Canadian Dollar
- US Dollar
- Philippine Peso
- Indian Rupee
- Vietnamese Dong
- Partnerships with the following gateways also allow for purchases, some of which may be instant:
- Bank transfer
- Sepa
- Paypal
- Interac
- POLi
- iDEAL
- Credit card transactions through Simplex (3.5% fee)
- Banxa
- WeChat Pay
- Alipay
- PayMIR
- OTC service & P2P fiat gateway
Winner: KuCoin is better-designed for purchases.
Trading Experience
Note: Poloniex and KuCoin have a strategic partnership for liquidity sharing.
Trading On Poloniex
- Colors and design are friendly on the eye
- Intuitive features
- Neat and clean trading interface with excellent charts and graphs
- Interesting API options for developers
- Margin trading enabled
- Beginner-friendly mobile application
- Logical navigation on browser or devices
- 299 market pairings
- 168 cryptocurrencies supported
KuCoin Trading Experience
- 570 market pairings
- 266 supported cryptocurrencies
- 100x leveraged trading available
- Easy-to-use trading interface
- High volume and liquidity
- Debunked? KuCoin claims that a quarter of all crypto-holders in the world are on their platform; however, they are reported to have around 6 million users, which would make Coinbase’s 43-million verified users figure wrong. We suspect this KuCoin stat is wholly untrue
Winner: KuCoin has achieved a large share of the market (not as much as they claim) — thanks to an excellent trading setup and design.
Reputation & Security
Poloniex
- Never been hacked
- Was used to siphon $4m in stolen funds from Russian crypto exchange EXMO, damaging their reputation
- Reputation for ‘restriction-free’ trading without KYC checks
KuCoin
- Hacked for $30m of Bitcoin, $86m of Stellar, and altcoins worth over $150m
- Recovered 84% of the funds thanks to their emergency protocols and the help of competing exchanges
- Their reputation among altcoin projects is heavily damaged due to this hack, as it caused massive developmental problems for smaller coins having so much of their market supply in malicious hands
Winner: We trust Poloniex slightly more with our funds.
KuCoin vs Poloniex: Who wins?
KuCoin and Poloniex are two crypto exchanges with a lot to offer. Industry opportunities to gain market share are slim, so we believe enabling fiat deposits would benefit both cryptocurrency exchanges. With all things considered, we choose KuCoin as our winner.
