KuCoin Raises $150M, Announces Web3 Expansion
- KuCoin’s $150 million pre-Series B funding round was led by Jump Crypto, and increased the valuation of the company to $10 billion.
- KuCoin will use the funds to expand its product offerings, as well as build and invest into DeFi, GameFi, NFT, and crypto wallet platforms.
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Cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin has raised $150 million in a pre-Series B funding round, increasing its valuation to $10 billion, with a new focus on web3, the company said in a press release on 10 May.
According to the announcement, the funding round was led by Jump Crypto, and saw participation from multiple investors, including Circle Ventures, IDG Capital, and Matrix Partners. This pre-Series B will help KuCoin promote the mass adoption of crypto, and expand the web3 capabilities of the exchange. The CEO of KuCoin, Johnny Lyu, said in a statement:
“The vote of confidence from prominent investors, including Jump Crypto and Circle Ventures, solidifies our vision that one day everyone will be with crypto. KuCoin is built for all classes of investors, and we believe these new investors and partners will contribute to making KuCoin synonymous with a reliable and trustworthy gateway into crypto space.”
KuCoin noted in its press release that it plans to expand its product offerings and go beyond its current centralized approach, focusing more on decentralized trading service. The exchange will also increase its presence in web3 by building and investing into crypto wallets, decentralized finance (DeFi), and non-fungible token (NFT) platforms through its investment arms, namely KuCoin Labs and KuCoin Ventures. A part of the newly acquired funds will also go towards the development of applications and infrastructure on its public community chain KCC.
Last month the exchange launched a $100 million Creators Fund to support early-stage NFT projects on its Windvane platform, KuCoin’s newly launched NFT marketplace. The marketplace — which supports most mainstream NFT blockchains, such as Ethereum, BSC, Flow, and others — has offered creators the ability to access the “huge user traffic” of the KuCoin exchange.
- The Twitter account of the crypto exchange was compromised for roughly 45 minutes on Monday, resulting in 22 transactions connected to the hack.
- KuCoin has calculated that the total asset losses were 22,638 USDT, and noted that it will fully reimburse users affected in the incident.
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- CEO Changpeng Zhao pledged on Tuesday to implement a Proof-of-Reserve mechanism at Binance to provide full transparency, and called on all industry players to follow suit.
- KuCoin, Poloniex, Huobi, and OKX were among the first crypto exchanges that promised to publish proof of their reserve holdings within a month.
- The popular web3 wallet has partnered with NFTBank, a firm building NFT price-tracking tools, in order to make the new feature possible.
- NFTBank claims it can offer over 90% accuracy on its prediction thanks to its machine learning algorithm that takes into account floor price, rarity, and bid/ask distribution for NFTs.