Gate.io vs Kucoin | Most Cryptos & Best For Beginners?

gate io vs kucoin image
Jack Moreau
Feb 2024
4 min to read
Fact checked

Gate.io vs Kucoin:  In this comparison, we looked how Gate.io compares to Kucoin across a range of categories including product range, supported countries and cryptocurrencies, user experience, trading fees and much more! Read on to learn which exchange is better!

Kucoin

+700 Cryptocurrencies

Spot, Margin, Perps, Bots

125X Leverage & Copy Trade

0.1%-0.3% Spot Trading Fees

Visit Kucoin
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Gate.io

+1700 Cryptos & 125X Leverage

Spot, Perps, Margin, Options

Top 3 Spot Trading Volumes

Stacked Product Offering

Visit Gate.io
eToro is a multi-asset investment platform. The value of your investments may go up or down. Your capital is at risk.

Gate.io vs Kucoin Comparison

Gate.io
Kucoin
MEXC
Founded
2013
2017
2018
Registered
Cayman Islands
Seychelles
Seychelles
Countries N/A
US, CA, CH, SG, MY
US, CA, CN
OFAC
Users
14M
30M
6M
Cryptos
+1700
+700
1780
Spot Fees
0.2%
0.1%-0.3%
0.2%
KYC Required
Yes
Yes
No
Best for
Altcoins & 125X Leverage
Altcoins & Perps
Altcoins & 200X Leverage
Rating
Signup
Gate.io
Your Capital is at risk.
Kucoin
Your Capital is at risk.
MEXC
Your Capital is at risk

Gate.io is a globally recognized cryptocurrency exchange that was founded in 2013 by Lin Han. Based in the Cayman Islands, Gate.io has established itself as a reputable platform offering a wide range of services to cryptocurrency traders.

With a workforce of over 350 dedicated employees, the exchange operates in 184 countries catering to a vast international user base of over 12 million users.

The platform supports various trading functionalities, including spot trading, margin trading, futures, and options trading. Gate.io also offers an extensive array of over 1,500 cryptocurrencies, making it an altcoin heaven.

While it is available in a vast number of countries, there are restrictions in place for users from the United States and Canada. Additionally, users in the United Kingdom, France, Netherlands, Germany, and Italy are limited to utilizing only spot trading services on the platform.

The exchange's popularity is further reinforced by its availability on both Android and iOS platforms, with the Gate.io app being downloaded over 1 million times. The app has received positive ratings, boasting a solid 4.4-star rating based on over 40,000 user reviews.

Gate.io app
Gate.io app

Kucoin is also a globally recognized cryptocurrency exchange that was established in 2017 by Michael Gan. As a subsidiary of Seychelles registered MEK Global Limited, the exchange boasts a global workforce of over 600 employees.

Kucoin operates in over 200 countries with restrictions in place for users from the United States and China, due to regulatory considerations.

Kucoin exchange
Kucoin exchange

As a comprehensive cryptocurrency exchange, Kucoin offers a diverse range of services to its users. These include spot trading, margin trading, futures, staking, and lending.

The platform supports +700 cryptocurrencies, including popular ones like Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL), Cosmos (ATOM) and many others.

Kucoin has successfully amassed an impressive user base of over 20 million users. The app has been downloaded over 5 million times and has a favorable rating of 4.3 stars based on more than 120,000 user reviews.

Kucoin app
Kucoin app

Gate.io vs Kucoin: Signup & KYC

Gate.io and Kucoin both make it easy for users to sign up for an account. It takes less than a minute to sign up for Gate.io and Kucoin, and the KYC verification process is relatively straightforward.

However, Gate.io requires users to verify their identity via KYC, whereas Kucoin does not.

As such, no trading can occur on Gate.io unless users provide all the necessary information and documents for the KYC verification.

Gate.io KYC
Gate.io KYC

On Kucoin signing up only takes less than a minute as only basic email signup is required to get started.

KYC verification is not mandatory on KuCoin and unverified accounts can buy and sell the same cryptocurrencies that verified accounts can.

Kucoin KYC
Kucoin KYC

Users that want to get access to higher withdrawal limits and more trading features will however have to go through the KYC process.

Basic verification can be approved in hours and KYC verification can take up to 2 business days in the slowest of cases.

Gate.io vs Kucoin: Products & Services

Gate.io is an established player in the cryptocurrency market and has seen significant growth and improvement in its product offerings over the years.

The platform has been  successful in attracting users with its spot trading feature where users can easily buy and sell from which an extensive range of over 1700 cryptocurrencies.

Gate.io Spot Trading
Gate.io Spot Trading

This has positioned Gate.io as a leading destination for those seeking to explore a wide array of digital assets, including hard-to-find altcoins with potentially lucrative opportunities.

Gate.io Crypto Markets
Gate.io Crypto Markets

For traders interested in margin trading, Gate.io offers the capability to trade with up to 10X leverage on hundreds of cryptocurrencies. In addition to traditional margin trading, Gate.io provides ETF leveraged tokens.

Gate.io Leveraged Tokens
Gate.io Leveraged Tokens

These tokens allow users to go long or short with up to 5X leverage, but without the typical requirements and liquidation risks associated with margin trading. In order to trade these ETF leveraged tokens, users are charged a 0.1% daily fee which covers all costs.

Gate.io Leveraged ETFs
Gate.io Leveraged ETFs

Gate.io, like most offshore exchanges also offers a robust set of futures trading products. Users can trade hundreds of perpetual contracts using either isolated or cross margin modes, and with the option of leveraging up to 125X.

Gate.io Perpetual Trading
Gate.io Perpetual Trading

This provides a high level of flexibility and the opportunity for significant returns for those comfortable with higher risk trading.

For options traders, Gate.io has European-style Vanilla Options available for cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Dogecoin (DOGE). These options provide another avenue for trading strategies and risk management.

Gate.io Options
Gate.io Options

Beginners who prefer a more guided approach to trading can take advantage of Gate.io's copy trading feature.

Gate.io Copy Trading
Gate.io Copy Trading

This allows less experienced users to replicate the trades of professional traders, providing an opportunity to learn and potentially benefit from expert trading strategies.

Moreover, Gate.io caters to users who prefer automated trading by offering a variety of trading bots. These bots come equipped with features such as spot and futures grid, infinity and margin grid, martingale, and rebalancing, among others.

Gate.io Trading Bots
Gate.io Trading Bots

In terms of trading volumes, Gate.io ranks in the top 3 for 24-hour spot trading with almost $8 billion in trading volumes and is in the top 30 in derivatives volumes with $3 billion in trading volumes.

Gate.io Trading Volumes
Gate.io Trading Volumes

Moving beyond trading, Gate.io offers a range of yield-earning opportunities in its Finance section with products like lend & earn, hodl & earn, dual investments, and staking.

Gate.io Earn
Gate.io Earn

The hodl & earn section allows users to lock assets such as BTC, ETH, and USDT, earning attractive Annual Percentage Rates (APRs) with different lockup periods. Additionally, users have the option to stake their ETH and earn up to 4.4% in ETH rewards APR.

Gate.io Staking
Gate.io Staking

For users looking to spend their cryptocurrencies in everyday transactions, Gate.io offers a Visa card with up to 1% cashback on all purchases.

Gate.io Card
Gate.io Card

In line with the evolving Web 3.0 trend, Gate.io has launched its own Web 3 Wallet to enable users that prefer non-custodial storage and trading to acccess DeFi on 29 blockchains, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and others.

Gate.io Web 3 Wallet
Gate.io Web 3 Wallet

Gate.io also caters to wealthy individuals and institutional clients with more sophisticated products such as custody solutions, Over-The-Counter (OTC) trading, VIP loans, and broker programs.

Gate.io VIP
Gate.io VIP

These services are designed to meet the needs of high-net-worth traders and institutions, offering a higher level of service, privacy and lower fees.

Similar to Gate.io, Kucoin has also grown into one a full fledged crypto service provider with a solid product range.

Similar to Gate.io, at the core of Kucoin’s offering is spot trading where its users can buy and sell over 700 cryptocurrencies and altcoins. 

Kucoin Spot Trading
Kucoin Spot Trading

While not as extensive as Gate.io, Kucoin is adding new coins and tokens weekly which makes it one of the best place to discover harder to find altcoins not available elsewhere. 

Kucoin Crypto Markets
Kucoin Crypto Markets

Kucoin also offers margin trading up to 10X for those that want to take levered bets, and users can go long or short with either cross or isolated margin, on over 100 cryptocurrencies. 

Kucoin also offers futures trading with over 250 tradable futures contracts available, which includes futures products such as USDT and USDC margin contracts, as well as Coin-margin contracts and grid bots. 

Kucoin Futures Products
Kucoin Futures Products

Users on Kucoin have the option to take up to 125X leverage which is attractive to degens who love to gamble. 

Kucoin Futures Trading
Kucoin Futures Trading

Leveraged tokens can also be found on Kucoin for those that want to take long or short positions with smaller leverage (2-4X) with no loans or liquidations.

Kucoin Leveraged Tokens
Kucoin Leveraged Tokens

For those that prefer to trade with bots, Kucoin offers plenty of options with spot grid, futures grid, martingale, smart rebalance, infinity grid and DCA.

Kucoin Trading Bots
Kucoin Trading Bots

In terms of trading volumes, Kucoin is currently ranking in the top 20 for spot trading with $1 billion in 24-Hour, and over $2 billion in futures trading. 

Kucoin Trading Volumes
Kucoin Trading Volumes

For those interested in earning interest on their digital assets, Kucoin has developed multiple yield products where its users can access earn savings, staking, dual investments and more. 

Kucoin Earn
Kucoin Earn

On the staking side, Kucoin provides access to staking rewards for a wide range of popular blockchains such as Etheruem, Solana, Cosmos, Polkadot, Injective and many others. 

Kucoin Staking
Kucoin Staking

Kucoin has also joined the ranks of exchanges that now offer their own launchpads for new token launches. 

Kucoin Launchpad
Kucoin Launchpad

Via Kucoin Spotlight, users can access exciting investment opportunities with allocations often being determined by how many assets users hold on Kucoin.

Also available on Kucoin is its very own dedicated NFT marketplace named Wonderland where users can buy and sell NFTs on the KCC blockchain as well as Polygon. Support for additional blockchains such as ETH, BSC and SLP is in the pipeline.

Kucoin NFT
Kucoin NFT

And for those that prefer to avoid exchanges and trade in a non-custodial manner, Kucoin recently launched the Halo Wallet which is a web 3 wallet that can be downloaded on mobile or via the chrome extension store.

Kucoin Web 3 Wallet
Kucoin Web 3 Wallet

As we can see, there is a lot of overlap between the products offered by Gate.io and Kucoin. The main differences are that Gate.io its own debit card which is not available on Kucoin, while Kucoin offers its own NFT marketplace and launchpad which Gate.io does not support.

Gate.io
Kucoin
MEXC
Spot Trading
Yes
Yes
Yes
Futures
Yes
Yes
Yes
Perps
Yes
Yes
Yes
Margin
Yes
Yes
-
Options
Yes
-
-
OTC Desk
Yes
-
-
Copy Trading
Yes
Yes
Yes
Trading Bots
Yes
Yes
-
Staking
Yes
Yes
Yes
Lend & Borrow
Yes
Yes
Yes
NFTs
-
Yes
-
Web 3 Wallet
Yes
Yes
-
Debit Card
Yes
-
-
Signup
Gate.io
Your Capital is at risk.
Kucoin
Your Capital is at risk.
MEXC
Your Capital is at risk

Gate.io vs Kucoin Fees

When it comes to trading fees, both Kucoin and Gate.io have an advantage over the other in different categories.

Kucoin offers lower spot trading fees of 0.1% for makers and takers compared to the 0.2% offered by Gate.io.

Trading fees on Kucoin can be lowered for both spot and futures trading once monthly trade volumes exceed 50 Bitcoins or if the user holds at least 1000 KCS tokens.

Kucoin spot fees
Kucoin spot fees

Gate.io however offers lower futures trading fees for makers (0.015%) and takers (0.05%) compared to the 0.02% and 0.06% offered by Kucoin.

Gate.io spot fees
Gate.io spot fees

Similar to Kucoin, the trading fees on Gate.io can be lowered if monthly trade volumes exceed $60,000 or if users hold enough GT tokens.

Gate.io
Kucoin
MEXC
Spot (mkr)
0.20%
0.1%-0.3%
0.2%
Spot (tkr)
0.20%
0.1%-0.3%
0.2%
Futures (mkr)
0.015%
0.02%
0%
Futures (tkr)
0.05%
0.06%
0.02%
Signup
Gate.io
Your Capital is at risk.
Kucoin
Your Capital is at risk.
MEXC
Your Capital is at risk

Gate.io vs Kucoin: Deposit Methods

When it comes to deposit options, Kucoin and Gate.io have distinct differences in their offering.

Kucoin offers a wide range of fiat deposit options, including support for 28 different currencies via Bank deposits, Visa, Mastercard and more which makes it the better choice for those looking to deposit fiat.

Kucoin fiat deposits
Kucoin fiat deposits

Bank deposits via Advcash are free of charge while SEPA deposits only cost 1 EUR. Deposits with credit and debit cards are however more expensive with up to 3.8% fees.

Gate.io, on the other hand, does not support fiat deposits, but provides instant crypto purchases with credit/debit card via MoonPay, Banxa, Advacash and Simplex.

Gate.io buy crypto with card
Gate.io buy crypto with card

Despite this convenience, the transaction fees for these options range from 2-5%.

Gate.io
Kucoin
MEXC
USD
-
Debit/Credit card
-
EUR
-
Debit/Credit card
-
GBP
-
Debit/Credit card
-
Signup
Gate.io
Your Capital is at risk.
Kucoin
Your Capital is at risk.
MEXC
Your Capital is at risk

Gate.io vs Kucoin: Withdrawal Methods

When it comes to fiat withdrawals, Gate.io does not offer any support for fiat currencies while Kucoin offers support for SEPA withdrawals for EUR and a few additional fiat currencies.

Kucoin fiat withdrawal
Kucoin fiat withdrawal

Kucoin charges a 1 EUR fee for SEPA withdrawals but there are also cheaper withdrawal options. Kucoin is obviously better than Gate.io when it comes to fiat withdrawal options as Gate.io is limited in this area.

Gate.io
Kucoin
MEXC
USD
-
Debit/Credit card
-
EUR
-
SEPA
-
GBP
-
SEPA
-
Signup
Gate.io
Your Capital is at risk.
Kucoin
Your Capital is at risk.
MEXC
Your Capital is at risk
Gate.io
Kucoin
MEXC
Bitcoin
0.001 BTC
0.001 BTC
0.0003 BTC
Ethereum
0.0035 ETH
0.01 ETH
0.0001 ETH
Solana
0.0046 SOL
0.01 SOL
0.01 SOL
USDT (ERC-20)
5 USDT
5 USDT
$4 USDT
Signup
Gate.io
Your Capital is at risk.
Kucoin
Your Capital is at risk.
MEXC
Your Capital is at risk

Is Gate.io better than Kucoin?

You should go with Gate.io if:

  • You want to access over 1500 cryptocurrencies
  • You don't mind paying slightly higher trading fees
  • You are comfortable using a more clunky interface

You should go with Kucoin if:

  • You want to access low 0.1% trading fees
  • You want access to over 700 cryptocurrencies
  • You want to trade crypto without KYC
Kucoin

+700 Cryptocurrencies

Spot, Margin, Perps, Bots

125X Leverage & Copy Trade

0.1%-0.3% Spot Trading Fees

Visit Kucoin
eToro is a multi-asset investment platform. The value of your investments may go up or down. Your capital is at risk.
Gate.io

+1700 Cryptos & 125X Leverage

Spot, Perps, Margin, Options

Top 3 Spot Trading Volumes

Stacked Product Offering

Visit Gate.io
eToro is a multi-asset investment platform. The value of your investments may go up or down. Your capital is at risk.
Author
Jack Moreau
Jack is a crypto writer and reviewer who has been active in the space since he caught the crypto bug in 2017. With a passion for trying out new shiny things, Jack is always eager to try the latest cryptocurrency exchanges, wallets or DeFi applications.

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