KuCoin reports growth in volume, user count through crypto winter

KuCoin user count and transaction volume on spot and futures markets exceeded 27 million and $3.6 trillion respectively, according to KuCoin’s 2022 Annual Review report.

Throughout 2022, the exchange welcomed over 13 million new users, which indicates a 102% year-over-year growth, according to the report. Of these new users, 7 million, corresponding to 53.8%, are located in the Asia-Pacific region.

Growing the team and the portfolio

As many crypto companies chose to downsize to survive the harsh crypto winter, 2022 became the year of layoffs. Despite the market sentiment, KuCoin grew its team by 20% in 2022 and plans to grow by another 20% in 2023, according to the report.

KuCoin community also experienced a parallel expansion in 2022 by growing to 1.3 million members dispersed across 23 language zones from 1 million members and 21 languages in 2021.

Concerns over liquidity

After the FTX collapse, KuCoin faced community concerns with regard to its exposure to FTX. In November 2022 KuCoin CEO Johnny Lyu responded to these rumors by disclosing the exchange’s reserves.

Lyu stated that the exchange had been transparent with its users from day one and said that the exchange owned 20,504 Bitcoin (BTC), 180,299 Ethereum (ETH), over 1 million Tether (USDT) and many other coins as of Nov. 11, 2022.

A few days later, Lyu gave an exclusive interview with CryptoSlate, where he reaffirmed KuCoin’s liquidity and said the exchange was also partnering with third-party auditors to promote transparency.