KuCoin crossed 45 million registered users worldwide in the first half of 2026, according to the exchange's anniversary report titled "Beyond the Signal." The document covers developments from January through June and lands exactly nine years after the platform launched.

User growth was sharpest in emerging markets. Latin America added users at a 170% clip during the period; Africa grew 30%. The exchange now lists more than 1,600 digital assets and, citing third-party research, claims a spot among the world's top three exchanges by spot market share and Bitcoin spot market depth.

CEO BC Wong framed the milestone in straightforward terms: nine years of market cycles, he said, taught the team that trust compounds over time the same way capital does. The platform's transparency push is concrete rather than rhetorical. KuCoin published its 44th consecutive monthly Proof of Reserves report during H1, with 14 independent audits completed by blockchain security firm Hacken. Active certifications include SOC 2 Type II, ISO/IEC 27001:2022, ISO/IEC 27701 and CCSS.

AI and Payments Doing the Heavy Lifting

The AI layer called KIA saw daily active users jump 300% in six months. It started as a customer support tool and has since spread into trading assistance, asset management, market intelligence and wealth management. KuCoin also rolled out Skills Hub, which lets external AI agents plug into modular crypto services, a move that positions the exchange closer to the infrastructure layer that other players in the digital asset space are also racing to occupy.

Payments told an even starker story. Off-chain volume through KuCoin Pay more than tripled over the period. Total payment orders grew more than 25-fold. The merchant and service partner count expanded by 60%, and the platform broadened its multi-chain payment support. Numbers like those put KuCoin squarely in the conversation about crypto moving from speculative trading into everyday financial rails, a shift that is reshaping how exchanges compete, much as stablecoin-focused infrastructure plays have been attracting fresh institutional attention elsewhere in the market.

The report does not break out revenue figures, so it is hard to judge how much of that payment growth translates to the bottom line. Still, the raw order volume growth is difficult to dismiss.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Crypto investments carry significant risk.