With a daily trading volume of over $1.600 billion, Kucoin is the fifth largest exchange in the crypto industry.
Seychelles, a small island nation in East Africa, appears to be the home of Kucoin, cryptocurrency price monitoring platform CoinMarketCap notes.
The islands, famous for being one of the largest tax havens in the world, according to Chronicler, is also listed as the main headquarters from which Kucoin operates, as indicated on the professional social network LinkedIn.
However, the cryptocurrency exchange, which was established in 2013 and opened for business in 2017, does not specify a physical address on its website. Instead, it uses the UTC+8 time zone, as stated on the website. This time zone corresponds to several Asian countries, including Singapore.
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Also, in 2018, a year after its opening, Kucoin published on its blog a release official in which he clarified doubts related to its physical location. In it, he indicated that the company's public address was in Hong Kong (China), although he also pointed out that this address was only a postal address of one of its many subsidiaries.
In the same statement, the cryptocurrency company specified that its headquarters were located in Singapore and that it also maintained main offices in four countries around the world, including China, the Philippines and Thailand.
Kucoin dispute in Singapore High Court
Although Kucoin’s physical address is not entirely clear, Singapore authorities took steps to block its web domain in 2020.
Kucoin recognized on his blog that he had a multi-line network and that he used different domains worldwide to offer his services to his clients, while denying the rumours about an alleged domain block by the High Court of Singapore.
This court has reportedly issued an injunction against Kucoin, prohibiting it from moving its main web domain outside its jurisdiction.
However, while the cryptocurrency company said it was “unverified information” and asked its users to be cautious when spreading it, the web hosting and domain name platform, GoDaddy, confirmed the block in an email.
The email, confirmed by Cointelegraph, noted that the cryptocurrency company's web domain had been blocked by order of the Singapore High Court.
Source: Cointelegraph
“As such, we have blocked your domain name”, GoDaddy notified Kucoin, after explaining that the High Court of Singapore had provided documents in relation to case HC/OS 342/2020, regarding the dispute between Kucoin and the company Convexity Limited, and that it requested to block the aforementioned web domain.
GoDaddy also notified the cryptocurrency company that the block on its web domain would automatically expire upon receipt of a dismissal order or, alternatively, a stay order in the case from the court.
The court order against Kucoin is also available on Singapore’s eLitigation database.
Kucoin Corporate Restructuring
Days before the Singapore High Court order, the company responsible for operating the exchange announced it would undergo a corporate restructuring of its brand and strategy.
The company published a release announcing the establishment of its central division KuGroup, from which it would manage its business and drive its global expansion. This division consists of three business groups: KuCoin Global, KuCloud and KuChain & KCS Business Group.
Prior to this restructuring, the cryptocurrency company's brand and logo were registered under the name of the company MEK Global, based in Seychelles.
On the other hand, in September 2020, a few months after its corporate restructuring, the Kucoin platform was hacked, allowing the theft of around $200 million from its users.
Kucoin managed to recover a significant portion of the stolen funds and is now ranked as the industry’s fifth largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, handling over $1.600 billion per day according to CoinMarketCap data.
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