Beyond the Signal: KuCoin Celebrates Its Ninth Anniversary, Surpasses 45 Million Users, and Advances Its Trust-First Vision

Beyond the Signal: KuCoin Celebrates Its Ninth Anniversary, Surpasses 45 Million Users, and Advances Its Trust-First Vision

2026/07/23 18:00:00
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Nine years ago, the crypto industry faced a fundamental challenge: access.
 
Users needed a way to discover digital assets, enter markets, manage funds, and participate in an emerging financial ecosystem. Exchanges helped address that challenge by connecting users with liquidity, products, and blockchain networks.
 
Today, crypto is entering a different phase.
 
Digital assets are becoming more closely connected with payments, traditional financial markets, institutional infrastructure, artificial intelligence, and everyday economic activity. As this transition continues, platforms are being measured on more than trading volume, product speed, or the number of listed assets.
 
The next phase will increasingly be defined by trust.
 
KuCoin’s 2026 H1 Review: Beyond the Signal, released as a ninth-anniversary special edition, explores how the platform has evolved from providing market access into building a broader trust-first crypto ecosystem.

Key highlights from the review include:

  • More than 45 million global users
  • Over 1,600 listed assets
  • New-user growth of 170% in Latin America and 30% in Africa
  • Recognition among the top three exchanges for global spot market share and BTC spot market depth, based on third-party reports cited in the review
  • 44 consecutive months of monthly Proof of Reserves reporting
  • 14 independent PoR audits conducted by Hacken
  • 300% growth in daily active users for KIA, KuCoin’s AI-powered service layer
  • Strong growth in on-chain payment volume
  • More than 3x growth in off-chain payment volume, over 25x growth in total payment orders, and 60% growth in service partners and merchants
  • More than 120 Crypto-as-a-Service partners and over 400 broker partners
“Nine years of market cycles have reinforced a simple belief: time rewards trust,” said BC Wong, CEO of KuCoin. “As crypto moves from the margins into the infrastructure of global finance, the platforms that endure will be defined not by short-term noise, but by the value they create over time. For KuCoin, that means building secure and transparent infrastructure, advancing responsible innovation, strengthening compliance, and connecting digital assets with the real economy. Beyond the Signal is our commitment to building an ecosystem that users and the industry can trust for the long term.”

Trust Must Be Measurable

Trust cannot depend on a single certificate, security feature, or public statement. It must be supported by systems that can be measured, independently validated, and continuously improved.
 
This is the foundation of KuCoin’s $2B Trust Project, which brings together five connected areas:
  • Security infrastructure
  • Compliance and governance
  • Transparency mechanisms
  • User protection
  • Global infrastructure and operational resilience
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By the end of the reporting period, KuCoin had completed 44 consecutive months of monthly Proof of Reserves reporting, supported by 14 independent PoR audits conducted by Hacken.
 
The platform also continued to invest in vulnerability-disclosure programs, AI-assisted security operations, faster incident detection and response, and user-protection mechanisms. These initiatives are supported by independent standards and certifications, including SOC 2 Type II, ISO/IEC 27001:2022, ISO/IEC 27701, and CCSS.
 
The objective is not simply to communicate trust. It is to embed trust in the way the platform operates.

Growth Is Becoming More Global—and More Local

KuCoin’s global user base exceeded 45 million, while the platform supported more than 1,600 listed assets.
 
But the more significant signal may be where that growth is taking place.
 
The report recorded 170% new-user growth in Latin America and 30% growth in Africa. These results point to a broader shift in crypto adoption, with digital assets increasingly connected to mobile financial behavior, stablecoin use, cross-border value transfer, local payment access, and broader access to financial assets.
 
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Global expansion is therefore no longer only about serving more countries. It is about understanding how users in different markets interact with money and building products around those behaviors.
 
At the same time, scale must be supported by liquidity and execution quality. Third-party assessments cited in the review placed KuCoin among the top three exchanges for global spot market share and BTC spot market depth.
 
Crypto-native assets remained the core of trading activity, while tokenized equities, ETFs, indices, and other TradFi-linked products broadened the range of market exposure available through crypto-native infrastructure.

AI Is Becoming a New Way to Access the Platform

AI in crypto is often presented as a chatbot, a customer-service tool, or a source of market summaries.
 
Its longer-term impact may be more fundamental.
 
During H1, KIA evolved from a standalone assistant into an ecosystem-wide intelligence layer covering eight core scenarios:
  • Futures
  • Spot
  • Search
  • Assets services
  • Content
  • Wealth management
  • Market data
  • Campaigns
KIA’s daily active users increased by 300%, suggesting that users are increasingly looking for more natural ways to understand markets and access platform functions.
 
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As crypto platforms become more complex, users may rely less on navigating product menus and increasingly use AI to retrieve information, understand assets, discover services, and identify relevant next steps.
 
The launch of KuCoin Skills Hub also created a pathway for external AI agents to connect with modular crypto capabilities. This represents an early step toward a more agent-ready digital asset ecosystem.

Crypto Payments Need to Feel Local

The next stage of crypto payments is not only about proving that digital assets can be used for payment.
 
The more important question is whether they can fit into payment behavior that users and merchants already understand.
 
KuCoin Pay is developing around that principle. Rather than asking users to learn an entirely new Web3 payment process, it connects digital assets with familiar local payment methods.
 
The report recorded more than 3x growth in off-chain payment volume, over 25x growth in total orders, and 60% growth in service partners and merchants.
 
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Product development supported the same direction. Payment Links and static merchant QR codes lowered technical onboarding requirements, allowing smaller merchants to accept crypto payments without building a complex integration.
 
KuCoin Pay also expanded multi-chain support, introduced crypto-to-stablecoin conversion through API, and developed more flexible settlement capabilities.
 
KuCard’s launch in Australia through Mastercard’s global network created another connection between digital assets and familiar everyday spending. The Tomorrowland limited-edition KuCard also brought real-world utility into a wider cultural context.

Institutional Adoption Is Moving from Experimentation to Infrastructure

Crypto’s institutional market is also evolving.
 
Early institutional participation often focused on gaining exposure to a new asset class. Today, brokers, fintechs, payment providers, banks, and asset managers increasingly need infrastructure that fits existing workflows for liquidity, custody, reporting, settlement, and governance.
 
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KuCoin Institutional now supports more than 120 Crypto-as-a-Service partners and over 400 broker partners. Broker-driven activity accounts for approximately 4% to 7% of overall platform trading volume.
 
KuCoin’s infrastructure connects partners with market data, liquidity, trading APIs, account systems, KYC services, wallet capabilities, and other modular services.
 
This allows businesses to add digital asset capabilities without independently rebuilding an entire exchange infrastructure stack.

Self-Custody Is Evolving into Market Access

KuCoin Web3 Wallet has also expanded beyond its original role as a self-custodial asset-management tool.
 
During H1, the wallet added:
  • Native in-wallet perpetual trading powered by Hyperliquid
  • Access to more than 260 tokenized U.S. stocks and ETFs through Ondo Global Markets
  • Access to additional crypto-native and TradFi-linked markets through HIP-3
  • Multi-chain access
  • Continued product education through Airdrop Hub and task-based campaigns
These developments reflect a broader evolution in self-custody.
 
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Wallets are no longer only places to hold assets. They are becoming gateways to trading, tokenized markets, prediction markets, and multi-chain ecosystems.

Nine Years Have Built the Foundation

KuCoin’s H1 progress is not represented by a single metric or product.
 
It reflects a broader transition across trust, liquidity, AI, payments, institutional infrastructure, Web3 access, customer protection, and global participation.
 
Crypto’s first phase was defined by creating access. Its next phase will be defined by whether that access is supported by trustworthy infrastructure, practical utility, and more intuitive user experiences.
 
As KuCoin marks its ninth anniversary and enters its tenth year, Beyond the Signal represents a shift from reacting to market movements toward building through market cycles.
 
Nine years have built the foundation. The next chapter is about scaling trust and helping shape the infrastructure of the digital asset economy.
 
Read the full 2026 H1 Review: Beyond the Signal here.
Disclaimer
 
The information is for corporate PR purposes only and does not constitute endorsement or investment advice.