KuCoin has great altcoin support. That’s why it’s quite a useful exchange for buying or trading it. You will, however, need to be familiar with its trading interface.
Because even swapping one cryptocurrency for another is done inside their trading platform (unlike Binance which has a “Converting” tool).
This is not a professional guide for trading. I won’t show you advanced technics in this article. But I’ll show you the fundamentals of making simple trades, such as buying and selling cryptocurrency with Market, Limit, Stop Market, and Stop-Limit orders.
How to trade on KuCoin shortly:
- Register or sing in on KuCoin
- Buy or transfer crypto to KuCoin
- Move it to your “Trading account”
- Go to trading interface
- Setup trading password
- Make your first trade!
Preparing for trading
Buy or deposit crypto to KuCoin
There are multiple ways to get some cryptocurrency on KuCoin’s platform:
- Buy it there with Visa (~6% commission), PayPal (20%), TransferWise (6%)
- Deposit crypto from your another wallet or exchange
- Deposit fiat to KuCoin from AdvCach and then buy crypto
- Buy it with a wire transfer via their P2P platform. Currently, not many people are using it, thus commission is high, plus you’ll need to complete a “Basic verification”. If you want to use P2P, it may be better to use Binance and then transfer crypto to KuCoin.
To summarize, if you can get a cryptocurrency cheaper somewhere else, it’s better to buy it there and then transfer it to KuCoin. Otherwise, select one of the options listed above.
Browser. Options to buy crypto can be found in the top menu:
To deposit crypto, click on your wallet (left top), then “Deposit”:
App. On the “Home” screen click “More”:
Then you will see in “Assets” all the options to buy or deposit crypto:
After you’ll be done with this, your funds will appear in your “Main account”.
Transferring funds to a trading account
You can’t use crypto from your “Main account” for trading. First, you’ll have to transfer it to your “Trading account”. Don’t worry, there is no commission.
Browser. Click on a wallet icon (top right)
Click “Transfer” on your “Main account”:
Select the coin and transfer from Main to Trading (you can press green arrow in the middle to swap the direction):
App. In the bottom menu, click “Assets”:
Then find the “Transfer” button:
Choose the coin you want to trade:
Transfer it from your Main to your Trading account:
After it’s done, you can use all the funds in your “Trading account” for trades.
Setting up trading password
This is not the same as your login password. Before you can make KuCoin trades, you must first enable it. Actually, it’s more akin to a six-digit PIN than a password.
You can skip that step and set it up later in the trading interface if you prefer. But, in case you want to change your trading password later, I will show you where you can find it:
Browser. Hover on your profile icon and then click in the area with your email:
Then find and click on “Trading password”:
App. Press on your profile icon:
Then find and press on “Security”:
Then find and press on “Trading password”:
Then follow the instructions from KuCoin to set it up.
Trading fees
It’s a good idea to know the fees you’ll have to pay before you make a trade.
So it won’t come as a surprise later.
Trading fees on KuCoin depend on your Account level, and you can check them here. Or just hover on your profile icon at the top right in a browser, and you will see the link:
In the app, press your profile icon and you will see it in the open menu as well.
Making our first trade.
It’s time to try to do some basic trades!
Let’s buy some Bitcoin for Tether! I mean… I will do this, but you’re free to trade whatever you want.
Browser. At the top menu, hover on “Trade” and click “Spot Trading”:
App. At the bottom, press “Trade”:
Then at the top, make sure Spot is selected:
Selecting the pair of cryptocurrencies
First, we need to find the pair of 2 coins we will trade. I’d like to purchase some Bitcoin for Tether, so I’ll need to find BTC/USDT or USDT/BTC pairs.
BTC and USDT are ticker symbols for Bitcoin and Tether, respectively. For other cryptocurrencies, you can find them here.
Browser. Click on the pair at the top and use the search (it can be a different pair than I have):
Browser. Press on the pair at the top and use the search (it can be a different pair than I have):
So I typed “USDT” in the search at first, but the options list was too long, so I typed “BTC” to find my pair faster. Then I saw “BTC/USDT” and selected it.
10x near pairs means that margin trading is available for that pair. But we won’t use margin trading in this instruction.
If you can’t find the needed pair, you will have to use an intermediate coin.
For example, if I want to trade USDC for DOT, I can’t do it directly. I will have to buy some other coin first and then trade it for DOT. USDT, for example.
Ok, we selected the pair we want to trade. Let’s make our first order!
Market order
We will start with the order called “Market order”. It is the simplest one, but it is dangerous (the danger I will explain later).
Market order is the fastest way to convert (swap) crypto on KuCoin.
Browser. Click on the “Market” (bottom right, you will have to enter your trading password first there or set it up):
App. Press on “Limit” and then “Market”:
In a “Market order” form, we’ll have to fill only one field: the “Amount”. In my case, it is the amount of USDT I want to convert to BTC:
If I enter “100” and then press “Buy BTC” my USDT will be automatically traded for BTC using the current market price at KuCoin.
And the phrase “current market price” is the danger I was talking about.
From investor.gov
A market order generally will execute at or near the current bid (for a sell order) or ask (for a buy order) price.
That means, if the price of current sell orders on KuCoin will be low or the price of the coin will suddenly rise, you may end up buying the coin at a higher price than you expected!
For myself, I won’t use it on unpopular pairs or when the price of a coin fluctuates rapidly.
Are you scared of using it already? Ha-ha, no problem, there is a better alternative:
Limit order
To address the problem of a sudden price hike, we may use “Limit order” feature. In the field “Limit” you have to type the maximum conversion rate you want to pay.
This is the safest way to convert crypto!
For example, I want to buy BTC for USDT, now it’s selling for 40532 USDT for 1 BTC. I can enter 40540 in the “Limit” field, and it will create an order which will be completed only when the rate is less than or equal to 40540. In my case, because the price didn’t change rapidly, it will be completed immediately.
If the price was already higher than a “Limit” when I clicked the “Buy BTC” button, you will see your order in “Open orders” (at the left in the browser or bottom in the app).
Here I’ve entered “30000” to make sure my order won’t be completed in the instance:
Because the current price of BTC is 40532 USDT it is not completed and waiting for the price to drop.
You can leave it there and wait. When the rate drops to 30k, it will be automatically completed. Or you can click the “Cancel” button and make a new one.
For selling, it is the same, but backward. In the “Limit” you enter the minimum price you want to sell your crypto for. If the price falls below the “Limit”, your order won’t be complete.
Stop limit
An example: you think that if the price of Bitcoin will rise $2k more, it will rise even higher after (it’s called “breakout“). So you want to buy Bitcoin only if it became $2k more expensive. The current price is $41k.
If you make a Limit order with the limit $43k (41 + 2) it will execute immediately, because the current price of BTC is lower than the limit you set.
In this case, you can use a “Stop limit” order. In the “Stop” field you can enter 43000. And in the “Limit” 43100. When the price of Bitcoin reaches 43000 it will create a “Limit order” with your “Limit” setting of 43100. And then it will act as a simple “Limit order”.
For selling, it’s the same, but backward. If you want to sell your crypto if the price will fall down to a certain point (“cut losses”), then you can enter that price point in the “Stop” field in the “Sell” form.
Stop market
Stop market orders work the same as “Stop limit” but without the “Limit” setting. Instead, it will use the best market price.
How to set up charts
KuCoin uses charts from a very popular trader’s app called TradingView. Some parts of the interface are different, but many are similar, so you may watch a video from a TradingView tutorial about that:
The end
I hope you learned all the basics for trading on KuCoin. Now is the time to use that knowledge.
If I missed something in the article, or you have more questions, or they changed their interface, feel free to leave a comment below!
