KuCoin Now Reopening Trading Post-Hack: Is Now The Time To Trade?

One of the major crypto exchanges, KuCoin, announced that it plans to partly resume its services including trading, deposits, and withdrawals to projects who are now fully restored following the recent exchange incident along with some tokens. The platform made the announcement in a security incident update published at 22:30 on October 02, 2020 (UTC+8).

Anthony Lynch
8 min readOct 3, 2020

As reported, KuCoin had suspended deposits and withdrawals as it worked to rehaul its security systems in the aftermath of a major hack on September 26, which resulted in the theft of some BTC, ETH, and some ERC-20s from the exchange’s hot wallets — worth more than $200 million at the time. KuCoin further announced some details of the team’s post-hack actions scarce, telling the public that it would reveal more information once the platform had fully resumed all of its operations. On September 30, Lyu hosted another livestream regarding the latest updates about the exchange’s security incident. He thus briefly outlined that:

“KuCoin established the Special Task Force gathering internal security experts and external industry professionals right after the incident bursted. With top-notch tech capability, we have carried out thorough investigation against the hacker’s attack path, and inch-by-inch search, now we have obtained substantial clues.Based on all these info, we are now on joint-investigation with law enforcements across countries and regions. As asked by the law enforcements, we will be able to publish all the details once the case is closed.”

This update represents the third official response from the exchange CEO since the incident took place — the first being a security incident update from KuCoin itself and the second being a post-hack live AMA to outline the measures being undertaken by the exchange to mitigate the chances of future security breaches.

Alternatives To Consider

2020 is likely a year every individual wouldn’t forget, with almost all financial markets jumping in all directions either from the traditional markets or the crypto scene. In light of the recent fiasco from KuCoin, after few days of repose, more and more people are looking for alternatives to save their accounts and are quickly turning into some of the best values out there to make positive returns. It’s not wise to base a user’s entire investment process in someone else’s hand. However, there is nothing wrong to check out where the market sentiment is. Though, before risking any of that hard-earned money, it’s wise to do some research, or read here about the best penny crypto picks.

Given that the exchange’s full operation is still undertaking and that it will be gradually re-enabling its deposits and withdrawals, in the meantime, what are some of the token/coin alternatives to look into that are restored in full service? If for instance, you want to withdraw or deposit some of your BTC or ETH and the exchange doesn’t yet allow it temporarily, here are some of the projects you can consider to trade if you want to deposit and withdraw.

Orion Protocol (ORN)

First in the list, Orion Protocol. The project is a decentralized, open-source finance project developed primarily for the integration of liquidity from various major liquidity providers, i.e. exchanges. Orion mainly lets users get the best return on their funds while reducing the risks associated with numerous (both centralized and decentralized) exchanges. Orion already has a multi-exchange pre-staking program and it yields a 39% APR, according to them. It is apparently so lucrative that 50% of the ORN ahs that circulate have already been staked. Orion strives to be a one-stop shop, so they naturally have a whole suite of traders’ goods and ecosystem. ORN, the native token of Orion, can be used all over the various products of the network.

Bitbns (BNS)

As the native token of Bitbns, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in India, BNS is a multi-protocol utility token by Bitbns. BNS aims at enabling the general masses to use crypto just like they use fiat in day-to-day transactions. BNS has completed four rounds of pre-public sales within 20 minutes and has use cases like shopping on Amazon and other E-commerce sites, paying the electricity bill and enjoying trading fee discounts on Bitdroplet, a platform backed by Bitbns that allows you to invest in Bitcoin using SIP strategy in multiple fiats like USD, EUR, GBP, INR, THB and AED. BNS is not only a native token of Bitbns. In the future, BNS will also be used in investment, international remittances, and more. With an ample application scenarios, the future of BNS is worth looking forward to.

UTRUST (UTK)

Utrust is a decentralized payment network based on the blockchain. To give the best of both worlds, it incorporates the characteristics of the conventional online payment system and blockchain technology. One that provides an accessible payment mechanism that secures transactions from the point of payment before the goods are obtained between buyers and sellers. By making payments easier, the platform also streamlines the interaction between merchants and customers. UTrust did just that by bringing together the best aspects of conventional technologies and blockchain technology as it merged the conventional consumer protection mechanism and the advanced blockchain infrastructure. This is the way to go in terms of increasing the acceptance rate for cryptocurrencies. The risk of price fluctuations that scares merchants from accepting them as payment transactions is addressed by Utrust and provides a solution to the issue of fraudulent payments.

Aleph.im (ALEPH)

Aleph.im provides scalability, cross-chain interoperability, a single identity solution. All of these are decentralized and fully open-source. Perhaps, no other project proposes what Aleph is offering today, at least none that has a live network today. Many DeFi projects are adding off-chain features, and need decentralization for it. Hence, Aleph aims to be the infrastructure layer of the DeFI ecosystem. With Aleph’s decentralized cloud storage, database, and computing platform, it can be compatible with multiple blockchains and able to speak their languages. The technology offered by Aleph could also disrupt several strong industries which progresses every year: IoT, cloud computing, and cloud storage. If Aleph.im is able to effectively create an ecosystem that brings major advantages, efficiency and reliability to these sectors, users might see a great adoption by businesses and individuals of their technology.

CarVertical (CV)

CarVertical has already proven its importance during the ICO as the first global blockchain-based car history registry, whereas it reached the $20 mln in just 3 weeks. Recognizing that without any whale investors, all funds came from individual group members. In addition, the CarVertical project is funded by the European Union and has also recently gained more institutional support. Since the use cases of CV are connected to the services of the network, being a holder of carVertical token offers everyone the ability to be part of a unique project that is open, decentralized and can play a role in the eradication of used car fraud. All in all, when it comes to long-term investment, CarVertical seems like a promising opportunity with great benefits.

Burency (BUY)

Burency is a completely licensed exchange that features a goal of advancing the adoption of cryptocurrency, blockchain innovation, and smart contracts all through the world. The Burency exchange is built for transparency and comfort. Burency plans to dispatch a full-service blockchain and crypto service to serve the individuals of the Middle East from existing exchanges lack of liquidity and security, unsustainable mining, and ignorance of Blockchain applications to businesses. Aside from the platform’s focus to provide a impervious and regulated crypto exchange. Through the Burency development center, the exchange will find real-world use cases for blockchain technology and smart contracts. Some of the areas the exchange intends to focus on consist of the real estate sector as well as the logistics industry. As the platform’s token BUY continues to play a crucial function in the Burency ecosystem, users can expect this to be a valuable token.

KuCoin Share (KCS)

After the unfortunate incident, KuCoin exchange’s native token has entered a stagnation phase and couldn’t keep up with its proliferation. Although the function of KCS is as many as the exchange token in other channels, pay trading fees, get VIP rights, etc., and KCS also has plenty of use cases outside of KuCoin in traveling, gaming, financing, social networking, and other industries, the value of it still felt short. However, one can healthily assume that 95% of KCS’s utility is tied to the network of KuCoin which indicates a large room for KCS growth. Not to mention IEOs using the Spotlight and DeFi projects that will jump on the KuChain. Moreover, given the assets’ low total supply and constant token burns, KCS can become the next BNB in a short time frame. BNB represents all the excitement and innovations that Binance and its subsidiaries are bringing to the world of cryptocurrency, the same can be said for KCS.

UMA (UMA)

UMA is a decentralized financial contracts platform built to enable Universal Market Access (UMA). The UMA protocol can be used to build a wide array of innovative financial products from perpetual token swaps, tokenized yield curves, futures to private pension plans, insurance annuity products, and so much more. While leading and unregulated derivative exchanges has dominated the scene over the past years, The purpose of UMA is to make the derivative markets more accessible beyond institutional investors, as well as reduce dependency on centralized exchanges with their associated risk of retention. UMA is one of the latest DeFi projects to hit the scene and might be one of the innovative projects to keep an eye on.

Ultra (UOS)

Under its own customized EOSIO blockchain, Ultra is a blockchain-based PC game distribution platform built to create new possibilities for both players and game developers. It consists of an ecosystem where gamers can resell their used games and products, in addition to purchasing and playing games, and earn money by participating in Ultra. The goal of Ultra is to undermine the game market structure by reducing the intermediaries that are almost monopolistic. The business model of Ultra is very detailed and provides multiple channels to produce cash flow based on advertisements, game sales revenue shares, exchange fees for cryptocurrencies, and more. They have an established company that already provides a large number of people with ads, and essential partnerships with well-known gaming companies with well-known gaming corporations have been achieved already or are really close to be.

Sentivate (SNTVT)

Sentivate is hoping to resolve the growing effect of having insufficient bandwidth on the existing world wide web with a dramatically growing human population. The existing components of HTTP and DNS are obsolete and will tend to have challenges with scalability as more and more companies migrate online and more of the world begins accessing the internet, especially during this pandemic. Sentivate aims to change the existing HTTP internet infrastructure with a completely new protocol-the Universal Data Stream Protocol (UDSP). There is no direct competition within the cryptocurrency industry proposing to use the same protocol and features as Sentivate to resolve the same issues. As such this gives Sentivate a competitive advantage at this moment in time within this industry.

Beg To Differ?

While everyone has their own opinion when it comes to capturing where the value is on the market, some people still prefer to stick to major currencies like bitcoin, while others see the importance of altcoins that have their own distinct uses, whether it be to power a decentralized financial network or storing and sending data. Whatever the case may be, there are arguments for the value and growth of many different altcoins in 2020. Disagree with the list? Did it mention any of your favorite altcoin? Give me your picks for the best altcoins to trade on KuCoin by leaving a comment below.

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