KuCoin Secures $10 Million for Products Upgrade and Metaverse Push

KuCoin announced the procurement of a $10M strategic investment from Susquehanna International Group (SIG) and the building of an office in the metaverse on July 22, 2022.

Global Expansion

One of the top five crypto exchanges, KuCoin has announced that it has secured $10M in funding and collaboration with one of the largest global quantitative trading firms, Susquehanna International Group, LLP (SIG). The formidable alliance will lead to a two-faced advantage.

The fund will support the upgrade of KuCoin’s platform infrastructure and enrich its product lines, thereby aiding its global expansion, which also includes a hiring plan. KuCoin, the home of bitcoin (BTC) and altcoins needs to fill up to 300 more job openings if it is to keep up with its support of over 1,200 token pairs and 700 digital assets, especially as the crypto space hopes for an end to the recent market downturn.

The collaboration will also contribute to the building of the ecosystem for KuCoin Shares (KCS) and KuCoin Community Chain (KCC) by supporting promising crypto startups. This support, which will focus mainly on projects on the KCC blockchain, will be offered in the form of consultation, investment, and incubation, the team says.

KuCoin, which was established in 2017 by Michael Gan, Johnny Lyu, and other founders, currently provides spot trading, P2P trading, Fiat trading, staking, futures trading, and lending to about 20 million users in 207 countries and regions, and in its 2022 H1 Review Report, it states that it has achieved over $2T in trading volume, which is a 180% increase from H1 of 2021.

The CEO, Johnny Lyu, believes that the partnership with SIG will solidify KuCoin’s role as a centralized exchange as the trading firm is of the same vision and values as they. He further states that the support will “… facilitate our ecosystem expansions in the decentralized Web 3.0 world.”

This investment is not the first funding the cryptocurrency exchange has received this year. In May, it secured a $150M pre-Series B fundraising, at a $10B valuation to pioneer exploration in Web 3.0. However, fundraising is not all KuCoin is about. The exchange is also extending its tentacles into the Metaverse, launching an immersive metaverse office in Ertha.

Extension into the Metaverse

Ertha is a metaverse project in the decentralized finance (DeFi) space that allows users to own non-fungible token (NFT) lands and generate a lifetime income. The game ecosystem is powered by the ERTHA token.

Having KuCoin as the first real-world brand to integrate into the ERTHA metaverse, Ertha announced this development to be game-changing. The state-of-the-art KuCoin office in ERTHA Beta will showcase custom NFTs, and the integration will also offer live charts and swift transportation to the KuCoin exchange platform.

This metaverse reach is not KuCoin’s first relationship with the rapidly-evolving sector. From the Wasted Land getting listed on the exchange to KuCoin Venture leading X Rush through a successful seed round, which led to the launch of X Racer NFTs on KuCoin, the global exchange is striving to become a game changer in the space.

The recent funding and partnership are expected to “create a synergy between SIG and KuCoin, benefiting the crypto industry by bringing it to a wider audience,” said the SIG investment team.