Crypto Exchange KuCoin Stirs up the Crypto Space With Wash Trading Speculations

One of the leading cryptocurrency exchanges was recently in the news as it had come up with its KuCoin Platform 2.0 with brand-new interfaces on its website, iOS and Android Apps. Although, this time the exchange has become the talk of the town for a wrong reason.

In the last year, KuCoin exchange had decided to delist 16 tokens considering them not so profitable for the platform. As these tokens were not able to generate volume on the KuCoin exchange, the Hong Kong-based exchange chose to remove them out. But, the matter doesn’t end here.

Reportedly, the exchange issued an ultimatum to at least four projects, which tells the projects to pay up to $180,000 in volume-boosting fees. If they don’t pay the fees the exchange will delist them. These tokens had reached as down as 18% in daily trades. Due to that, KuCoin seems to punish them by imposing the “Special Treatment Rules” on the tokens. These tokens are namely Jibrel, Encrpgen, Publica and Unikrn. The tokens were advised to pump volume by “any means necessary.”

Regarding such actions by KuCoin exchange, Jibrel’s COO, Talal Tabbaa stated,

“We received an email saying ‘you have the ability to improve your volume or you’ll be delisted. Then they recommended market-making firms that would help us reach the minimum daily volumes they set for projects. I was honestly shocked at the requests they were making.”

Tabbaa revealed that the firm introduced him to two KuCoin affiliates who did the “listing and marketing” at the exchange. KuCoin recommended that the market maker (KuCoin affiliates) can help the project to reach a minimum trading volume. Tabbaa strongly believed that this hints to wash trading. He said, “Whenever there’s a volume guarantee, you know there’s something wrong.”

Moreover, KuCoin has acknowledged that the person who emailed Jibrel is a current employee at KuCoin. Meanwhile, Tabbaa has refused to pay $180,000 a year. He claimed that he always wanted to generate “natural demand.” With that, the other three firms Encrypgen, Publica and Unikrn also confirmed similar experiences.

Notably, the exchange’s newly launched updated version KuCoin 2.0 is facilitated with new functionalities like a new WebSocket API, Device Trust System, Stop Orders, and SNS push notifications.