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KU KuCoin VS UP Upbit
Both exchanges offer Spot. The differences below come from our individual reviews of KuCoin and Upbit.
| KuCoin | Upbit | |
|---|---|---|
| Founded | 2017 | 2017 |
| Regions | Available in most regions outside the United States. A 2025 guilty plea to unlicensed money transmission and a March 2026 CFTC consent order permanently bar KuCoin's operator from allowing US-based traders onto its platform. Also restricted in mainland China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and a handful of other jurisdictions: verify local availability before signing up. | Built primarily for South Korean residents: full KRW trading requires a real-name-verified account at K Bank, Upbit's sole partner bank, plus Korean identity verification. Separate Upbit Singapore, Upbit Indonesia, and Upbit Thailand entities serve those markets under local licenses. Not available to US persons or several sanctioned countries. |
| Products | Spot, Margin, Perpetual futures, Trading bots | Spot |
| Maker fee | Verify current tier: KuCoin uses a volume-based maker/taker schedule, with roughly a 20% discount for paying fees in its native KCS token | Verify current tier: Upbit's KRW pairs have run around 0.05%, and BTC/USDT crypto pairs were cut from a standard 0.25% to a promotional 0.05% in mid-2026 amid competitive pressure, so check the live rate and which promotion (if any) is active before trading |
| Taker fee | Verify current tier: KuCoin uses a volume-based maker/taker schedule, with roughly a 20% discount for paying fees in its native KCS token | Same volatility applies here: verify current tier and any active promotional rate before trading, since Upbit has changed crypto-market fees more than once in response to fee-free competitors |
KuCoin pros
- One of the widest altcoin listings among major exchanges, useful for traders looking for assets that haven't reached Binance or Coinbase yet
- A mature, free built-in trading-bot suite (grid and DCA bots) that many competitors charge for or don't offer at all
- Fully recovered from its 2020 hack, with no comparable incident since and a published monthly proof-of-reserves report
Upbit pros
- By far the deepest KRW order-book liquidity of any Korean exchange, useful for anyone actually trading in won
- Real-name bank verification through K Bank adds a genuine anti-fraud layer most offshore exchanges don't have
- Wide listing of Korea-origin and Korea-popular tokens that are thinly traded or unlisted elsewhere
- Moved to holding over 99% of assets in cold storage following its 2025 breach, well above Korea's 80% legal minimum
This table is generated from the same data behind our individual exchange reviews. See methodology for how it's put together. Fee figures marked "not yet verified" need confirming against live terms before this page is treated as launch-ready.