KuCoin just crossed 45 million users worldwide. That's a jump from 5 million back in 2017, and it happened while most of the crypto world was trading sideways. The milestone comes as the exchange gears up for its ninth anniversary, backed by a fresh performance report co-published with CoinGecko.

The numbers tell a specific story about where the exchange sits right now. Daily spot trading averaged $1.99 billion in the first half of 2026, with perpetual futures hitting $3.07 billion per day. When Bitcoin had its liquidation event in February, those numbers spiked, spot volume touching $6.91 billion and futures jumping to $6.73 billion. The platform weathered the broader slowdown better than peers, with reserves dropping just 21.8% compared to bigger declines elsewhere.

Regulatory footprint keeps expanding

KuCoin moved across three major regulatory checkpoints in the past year. The exchange now holds MiCAR licensing in Austria through KuCoin EU, registered as a Digital Currency Exchange with Australia's AUSTRAC, and became the first global crypto exchange to register with India's Financial Intelligence Unit. On the security side, the platform completed 44 straight months of Proof of Reserves reporting, backed by 14 independent Hacken audits.

Tokenized stocks and shifting trader behavior

The report highlights a pivot worth watching. KuCoin launched tokenized stock perpetual futures in March and dropped 121 stock-linked contracts in just over three months, covering Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, Meta, Alphabet, Tesla, semiconductors, banks, ETFs, and even a pre-IPO contract tied to OpenAI. That's aggressive expansion into a niche product category.

Trader behavior is shifting too. Bitcoin and Ethereum's combined share of KuCoin's top spot pairs fell from 74.3% to 45.2% during the first half of the year. Altcoins are picking up steam, along with emerging narratives around AI and DeFi. The exchange added 107 new spot listings and 198 perpetual contracts overall during the period.

This is informational content about exchange operations and market data. It's not investment advice or a recommendation to trade on any platform.