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ByBit vs. KuCoin: Which Is The Better Exchange?
Hedge with Crypto aims to publish information that is factual and accurate as of the date of publication. For specific information about a cryptocurrency exchange or trading platform please visit that provider’s website. This information is general in nature and is for educational purposes only. Hedge with Crypto does not provide financial advice nor does it take into account your personal financial situation. We encourage you to seek financial advice from an independent financial advisor where appropriate and make your own enquiries.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Quick Verdict
Overall, ByBit is a slightly better platform than KuCoin for serious traders. While KuCoin does have slightly more to offer in the way of features and earning products that will appeal to beginners and investors, the trading fees are marginally higher.
For more information, read our ByBit review and KuCoin review.
A summary of their main features is compared in the table below.
| ByBit | KuCoin | |
|---|---|---|
| Website |
https://www.hedgewithcrypto.com/go/bybit |
https://www.hedgewithcrypto.com/go/kucoin |
| Promotion | 0% trading fees for 30 days (spot only) | Up to 500 USDT in bonuses |
| Fiat Currency | USD, EUR, GBP, AUD, CAD, +125 Others | USD, GBP, EUR, CNY & 46 others |
| Supported Cryptocurrency | 331 (608 trading pairs) | 806 |
| Max. Trading Fee | 0% (spot), 0.06% / 0.01% (futures) | 0.1% |
| Overall Rating | HedgewithCrypto Score 4.8 / 5 We provide an overall weighted average rating out of 5 stars. Our ratings are based on objective criteria like the ease of use, fees, deposit methods, customer support and availability. Our reviews are not influenced by 3rd parties. Click here for further information about our rating methodology and a full list of categories we review against.   Visit ByBit |
HedgewithCrypto Score 4.6 / 5 We provide an overall weighted average rating out of 5 stars. Our ratings are based on objective criteria like the ease of use, fees, deposit methods, customer support and availability. Our reviews are not influenced by 3rd parties. Click here for further information about our rating methodology and a full list of categories we review against. Visit KuCoin |
| Review | Read our full ByBit Review | Read our full KuCoin Review |
In-Depth Comparison: ByBit vs. KuCoin
Bybit is a very popular cryptocurrency exchange aimed at professional traders with high-volume margin and derivatives trading available. Bybit is one of the top leveraged trading platforms offering 100x leverage, as well as leveraged tokens. Active traders will benefit from the built-in Tradingview charts, multiple order types, and the ability to program custom trading bots directly on the exchange and benefit from low fees.
Bybit hosts over 5 million users around the globe, with a daily trading volume of over $10 billion on its derivatives platform alone. In addition to trading, users can earn interest on crypto holdings, join the WSOT trading competition to win prizes, and buy, and sell NFTs on the marketplace.
Read our full ByBit review and use a referral code for a deposit bonus.
Bybit Pros:
- One of world’s largest derivatives trading platforms (by volume)
- Modern and intuitive charting and trading platform
- Good selection of futures trading pairs
- Trading competition with massive prize value
- Excellent mobile app for 24/7 crypto trading
Bybit Cons:
- May be too complicated for beginners
- Fiat support is lacking (only 2 supported)
- Not available for traders in the United States
- Limited range of staking and earning interest products
KuCoin, on the other hand, is a top Bybit alternative for altcoin trading, with a huge selection of 700+ coins for trading which is one of the largest selections of any crypto exchange. Established in late 2017, KuCoin has grown quickly, with over 20 million users worldwide and is comfortably one of the best exchanges for trading crypto. KuCoin offers almost everything a crypto trader could want, including a spot exchange, futures markets, margin trading, leveraged tokens, zero-fee crypto swaps, and more. There are also several ways to earn interest on crypto, including staking rewards and crypto lending services.
KuCoin offers very low trading fees, starting at 0.1% for most large-cap coins, and has both simple and advanced trading available. KuCoin also allows users to set up free trading bots, trade with margin on spot, and make purchases through its (new) NFT marketplace.
Read our full Kucoin review.
KuCoin Pros:
- Large selection of 700+ coins to trade with deep liquidity
- Both simple and advanced trading platforms for all traders
- In-built crypto trading bots to automated a trading strategy
- Very low trading fees (with discounts for KCS coin holders)
- Wide selection of products to earn rewards on crypto deposits
KuCoin Cons:
- Buying crypto via third party has higher fees
- Not available for traders in the United States
ByBit vs. KuCoin: Features, Products & Services
ByBit and KuCoin are hugely popular derivatives trading platforms with tons of trading tools and a great selection of coins. Here is a comparison and overview of some of the common and unique features of both ByBit and KuCoin.
Supported Countries
Bybit and KuCoin are available worldwide, supporting customers in over 100 countries around the globe. KuCoin supports customers in over 200 countries, though due to derivatives trading regulations, it is not available in the United States. Bybit is available in only about 150 countries and is not available in many major markets (U.S. Singapore, Canada) due to regulations. KuCoin has over 20 million customers, making it one of the largest exchanges in the world. Bybit is also a large exchange that is available around the globe, with over 5 million customers.
Winner. KuCoin.
KuCoin has 4x more customers than ByBit and is supported in many more regions. While some features may not be available in all countries, KuCoin has gone to great lengths to be available worldwide apart. Both platforms are not available to residents in the USA.
Accepted Fiat & Crypto
Bybit offers just over 100 crypto assets that makeup over 200 trading pairs, which is a decent selection, but not as big as other crypto exchanges. KuCoin, on the other hand, is the king of altcoins, offering a huge selection of 700+ cryptocurrencies across thousands of trading pairs. This is one of the best selections in the crypto market today.
KuCoin supports 50+ fiat currencies, but deposits may come with fees and trading with fiat is limited to about a dozen coins. ByBit only supports 2 fiat currencies, and is even more restrictive, only allowing trading with stablecoins. Both ByBit and KuCoin supports credit/debit card purchases, but with high fees. For the derivatives markets, Bybit Exchange offers over 150 trading pairs between the perpetual and futures trading features, while KuCoin offers over 200 trading pairs in their futures markets.
Winner. KuCoin.
KuCoin offers over 700 crypto and thousands of trading pairs, as well as more derivatives markets and choices. Plus, users can utilize more fiat currencies (though in a limited capacity).
Margin Trading (with Leverage)
ByBit and KuCoin both offer highly-rated crypto margin trading platforms, with hundreds of derivatives markets supported, and multiple ways to use leverage. For Kucoin, the available markets are:
- Spot. Margin with up to 10x leverage on over 200 trading pairs.
- Futures contracts. Both standard and perpetual futures contracts with up to 100x leverage are available with over 100 trading pairs to choose from.
- Leveraged tokens. Both LONG and SHORT positions on over 100 tokens with 3x leverage.
In contrast, ByBit also offers access to spot margin trading, futures contracts, and leveraged tokens, but in addition, it also supports:
- Inverse contracts. Perpetual and futures contracts using the coin itself as collateral. Only a handful of available coins are supported, including BTC and ETH. Futures contracts are settled on a quarterly basis.
- Options contracts. USDC-settled options contracts are available on a daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly basis.
These markets are one of the highest volume derivatives exchanges on the market and a top reason why it's a leading day trading platform for crypto.
Winner. Bybit.
While KuCoin offers more derivatives market choices, ByBit simply offers more choices for leveraged trading, with options contracts and inverse contracts available. Both platforms offer up to 100x leverage and the ByBit WSOT competition is one of the best for traders.
Trading Volume & Liquidity
ByBit does not process a lot of spot volume, though it still hosts about $500 million in daily volume. KuCoin does a lot more volume for spot, processing over $1 billion in daily volume. As for derivatives volume, both KuCoin and ByBit are popular crypto exchanges with KuCoin processing over $ billion in daily volume, and ByBit processing a massive $10 billion+ every day.
At the time of writing, ByBit offers decent liquidity on most large-cap coins, with an average liquidity score of 546 (out of 1,000). KuCoin has an average liquidity score of 586, which is slightly better than ByBit, but not as good as places like Binance (read our ByBit vs Binance comparison). The liquidity on large-cap trading pairs (like BTC/USDT) is good on both crypto exchanges around 650 – 700. Liquidity ratings help determine whether users can place large orders and avoid excess slippage.
Winner. Draw.
While ByBit hosts more derivatives trading volume, KuCoin offers twice the spot volume, and slightly better liquidity. Both are equally solid platforms in regards to liquidity and trading volume.
Earning Interest on Crypto
ByBit and KuCoin both offer tons of ways for users to earn interest on their cryptocurrency. KuCoin offers multiple Earn products that offer a broad range of options to deposit more than 100 supported coins into different yield products, including:
- Crypto lending. Earn interest for lending out crypto on short-term loans (up to 28 days max).
- KCS Bonus. KCS holders share in the trading fees on the platform by earning a KCS bonus.
- Staking. Users can earn stable interest on both fixed and flexible term crypto staking.
- KCS Bonus. Kucoin offers its own cloud mining service, allowing users to mine for crypto while Liquidity pool mining. Join liquidity pools to earn yield by collecting transaction fees from DeFi exchanges.
- KuCoin lottery. KuCoin offers a lottery game called Lucky Raffling that draws winners of a large jackpot.
- Cloud Mining. Cloud mining service that allows users to mine for tokens, paying KuCoin a fee for managing the hardware and utility costs.
Like KuCoin, Bybit has an earn platform with popular products such as savings account, DeFi mining and Launchpool, which is essentially a crypto staking platform that can be unstaked at anytime. There are 50 supported cryptocurrencies that can be deposited to the Earn platform, which includes similar to KuCoin such as:
- Crypto savings accounts. Deposit crypto for a fixed – or flexible – length of time and earn interest.
- Decentralized Finance (DeFi) mining. Join Curve mining pools to earn yield from mining rewards.
- Liquidity mining. Join liquidity pools to earn yield by collecting transaction fees from DeFi exchanges.
- Launchpool. A way to stake crypto and earn new tokens for free.
- Dual asset investing strategy. Deposit USDT and another crypto asset, predict the price action, and each yield.
Winner: KuCoin.
Both platforms offer massive value with their Earn products, giving users a lot of choice when it comes to earning high interest on crypto. But KuCoin edges out ByBit here, offering more choices and double the assets for earning interest (100 vs 50).
Buying & Selling NFTs
ByBit and KuCoin offer basic NFT marketplaces, but the selection isn’t great. KuCoin has an NFT launchpad that allows users to buy, invest-in, and manage in-game NFTs, but you can’t sell NFTs on the platform. The ByBit NFT marketplace allows you to buy or sell NFTs, but listing NFTs requires a manual application.
Winner: ByBit.
While there are much better places to trade NFTs, ByBit offers at least the basics, with a true marketplace allowing you to buy and sell NFTs. KuCoin is sorely lacking here.
ByBit vs. KuCoin: Ease of Use
ByBit and KuCoin both have top-notch trading platforms, designed with experienced traders in mind. Both offer derivatives trading with built-in Tradingview charting as well. Both have great layouts on their platforms that allow traders to see everything at a glance and set up advanced trades with ease.
Bybit is only for advanced traders, with both the mobile app and web app offering a similar trading experience. Users can quickly navigate between spot, margin, and futures trades, and the programmable trading bots are available to automate trading. The mobile app offers more of the same, with advanced trading tools only a tap away.
KuCoin is also aimed at experienced traders, but also offers a “Buy Crypto” option for beginners, making it easy for new users. The advanced trading platform offers detailed charting, access to margin and derivatives trading, as well as leveraged tokens and free trading bots that a built directly into the exchange interface. The mobile app is user-friendly for beginners but offers the same advanced trading tools as the web platform.
Winner: KuCoin.
ByBit is one of the best platforms for pro-level traders due to its sophisticated trading experience and modern mobile app. But KuCoin offers great tools for beginners and advanced traders with its dual user interfaces and crypto convert feature.
ByBit vs. KuCoin: Trading Experience
Both ByBit and KuCoin offer great trading experiences, especially for advanced crypto traders. Bybit offers a comprehensive platform powered by TradingView charts with hundreds of built-in indicators and drawing tools. ByBit also offers its own charting system. Users can also view live order books, a depth chart, a detailed order form (with access to market, limit, stop-loss, and conditional orders), and access to a favorites menu.
The menu makes it easy to trade spot (and optional margin) and leveraged tokens, and ByBit even offers its own custom crypto trading bot that users can program to automate their trading. The derivatives platform is extremely comprehensive, with access to dozens of perpetual futures contracts, and even options trading (with leverage up to 100x).
KuCoin also offers TradingView charts on its platform, with the ability to access all of the indicators and drawing tools, and save templates. The trading interface shows live order books, a depth chart, isolated and cross margin selections, and access to the KuCoin futures markets. There is also a favorites list, which comes in handy when browsing through 1,000+ trading pairs.
The grid trading bot is available directly in the order form, with customizable settings. KuCoin’s derivatives platform offers access to hundreds of trading pairs for perpetual futures trading, and even trading competitions with prizes. If creating a crypto bot isn't the right option, KuCoin has an impressive copy trading platform for crypto. KuCoin S is a social trading community to share ideas and follow the best crypto traders.
Winner: Draw.
Both platforms offer advanced trading tools, crypto charting software and features, and in-depth derivatives trading for even the most experienced trader. Professional and active traders can’t go wrong choosing either platform for trading..
ByBit vs. KuCoin: Trading Fees
Bybit offers extremely low fees for traders, starting at 0.1% per trade, and offering discounts to high-volume traders. Utilizing a maker-taker fee schedule, higher-volume traders receive trading fee discounts, with the fees going as low as 0.00%. KuCoin also offers very low fees for traders, with small cap coins trading at 0.3% per trade and the most popular coins starting at 0.1% per trade. KuCoin also offers discounts for high-volume traders, and even offers rebates for the highest level traders and those that hold a significant amount of the native KuCoin token (KCS).
For derivatives trading, ByBit and KuCoin offer even lower fees that are almost the same, with ByBit offering lower taker fees. Kucoin does offer rebates for the highest volume derivative traders, as well as KCS holders.
| Bybit Trading Fees | KuCoin Trading Fees | |
|---|---|---|
| Spot (fiat-to-crypto) | From 0.1% (maker) / 0.1% (taker) | Large caps: From 0.1% (maker) / 0.1% (taker), Small caps: From 0.3% (maker) / 0.3% (taker) |
| Derivatives trading | From 0.01% (maker) / 0.06% (taker) | From 0.02% (maker) / 0.06% (taker) |
Winner: Bybit.
Both platforms offer rock-bottom trading fees, with ByBit starting slightly lower, but KuCoin matches the 0.1% for most coins. The derivatives fees are also very similar, but the maker fees on Bybit are half that of KuCoin and is the winner for this category.
ByBit vs. KuCoin: Mobile App
The Bybit app is available on Android and iOS mobile devices and offers an intuitive trading experience, especially for traders familiar with the web app. Users can access most of the same advanced trading features, including derivatives and margin trading as well. The Android app has been downloaded by millions of users and has a 4.1/5.0 based on over 68,000 reviews. Based on our reviews, the Bybit app is fairly responsive and easy to use for traders.
The KuCoin app is also available on Android and iOS mobile devices and offers an incredible amount of features, with access to almost everything on the web platform. The Android app has been downloaded by 5 million+ users and boasts a 4.4/5.0 based on over 100,000 reviews. Based on our reviews, the KuCoin is intuitive and snappy, though the number of features available may be a bit overwhelming to beginners.
Winner: Bybit.
The Bybit app offers everything and is one of our top 10 crypto apps available based on our reviews. Though the plethora of features available might feel overwhelming, once you get the hang of the app, it’s a really great experience. Users can trade a good selection of coins, access earning opportunities, and derivatives trading directly on the app. KuCoin has a great app too but is not as responsive and more difficult to navigate.
ByBit vs. KuCoin: Security
Both ByBit and KuCoin offer world-class security measures for data and digital asset protection, with end-to-end data encryption and cold wallet storage of crypto assets. Both also offer KYC identity verification (though KuCoin doesn’t require it to trade), Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) for accounts, the ability to whitelist withdrawal addresses, and both carry insurance on stored crypto assets.
Related: How long does KuCoin ID verification take?
But KuCoin was hacked in 2020 and lost over $275 million. Hackers breached several KuCoin hot wallets for a number of cryptocurrencies and drained them. KuCoin was able to recover most of the funds with the help of a third-party crypto analytics company, and any additional losses were covered by the KuCoin insurance fund.
Winner: ByBit.
ByBit and KuCoin are both very secure, but the bottom line is that KuCoin suffered a very large hack and lost user funds. ByBit has never been hacked and keeps 100% of user funds in cold storage, offering maximum security for user funds.
ByBit vs. KuCoin: Customer Support
Both ByBit and KuCoin offer help centers with detailed documentation and FAQs to help users find answers to questions. KuCoin offers a simple chatbot to answer common questions, but no access to live human support. KuCoin only offers customer support through a web ticketing system, and via email, which may take a while.
ByBit, alternately, offers 24/7 live chat with an actual human, allowing users to quickly ask questions and get help from support staff. Users can also utilize the chatbot for automated responses, or submit a request for an ongoing issue to interact via email.
Winner: ByBit.
KuCoin offers the bare minimum for support which is a negative, particularly for newer users on the platform. In contrast, ByBit has a 24/7 chat service which was responsive and very helpful during our testing.
Final Comparison Scores
To conclude this comparison of which exchange is better between ByBit and KuCoin, each crypto exchange has been scored using simple evaluation criteria as shown below.
| Comparison Criteria | Winner |
|---|---|
| Supported Countries | KuCoin |
| Accepted Fiat & Crypto | KuCoin |
| Margin Trading (with leverage) | Bybit |
| Volume & Liquidity | Draw |
| Earning Interest on Crypto | KuCoin |
| Buying & Selling NFTs | Bybit |
| Ease of Use | KuCoin |
| Trading Platform | KuCoin |
| Trading Fees | Bybit |
| Mobile App | Bybit |
| Security | Bybit |
| Customer Support | Bybit |
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Jacob Wade
Jacob Wade has been a nationally-recognized personal finance expert for the past decade. As a cryptocurrency enthusiast and investor since 2020, Jacob enjoys researching and writing about the latest in crypto and blockchain technology. Jacob's work has been featured in several publications like CBS News, MSN Money, Forbes, NASDAQ, Yahoo! Finance, Go Banking Rates, The Balance, Investopedia, New York Times and AOL Finance.
