Crypto exchanges are putting increasingly large incentives behind futures, stocks and traditional-market products, with KuCoin, Bitget and Biconomy rolling out new campaigns that reward traders for generating volume across products ranging from equity-linked perpetuals to commodities.
KuCoin is leading the latest push with a 100,000 USDT campaign tied to an expansion of its TradFi perpetual-futures lineup to 161 pairs. The exchange said the catalog now covers stock indices, major technology companies, precious metals and commodities, allowing eligible users to trade USDT-settled contracts around the clock.
The promotion began on September 29 and runs through November 29. Traders can earn lucky-draw spins by completing their first qualifying TradFi futures trade, reaching daily volume thresholds and crossing cumulative trading-volume milestones.
The first-trade task requires at least 100 USDT in qualifying volume. Daily TradFi trading volume of 500 USDT or more can generate additional spins, subject to campaign limits, while larger cumulative volumes unlock further chances.
Prizes include USDT, Bitcoin, Ether and stock-position vouchers linked to companies including Tesla, Nvidia, Micron and Sandisk.
KuCoin Is Using Rewards to Introduce Crypto Traders to 161 TradFi Markets
The 100,000 USDT prize pool is notable, but the larger development is the range of products KuCoin is trying to put in front of its existing crypto audience.
Instead of building a campaign around Bitcoin or newly listed altcoins, the exchange is paying users to experiment with markets linked to equities, stock indices, metals and commodities.
That resembles Binance’s recent push into 24/7 tokenized stock trading, where rewards were used to encourage users to move between stock-linked products and futures inside the same exchange account.
KuCoin is simultaneously targeting a much narrower group of high-volume customers through a separate VIP Premier+ Stock Trading Challenge.
That campaign runs through October 23 and is restricted to VIP5+ customers and eligible API traders, excluding market makers. Participants receive fee-deduction coupons as they cross cumulative stock-trading thresholds, starting with 10 USDT at 100 USDT of volume and rising to a 5,000 USDT coupon at 10 million USDT in cumulative volume.
KuCoin says rewards can be accumulated across milestones, subject to an overall campaign maximum of 10,000 USDT.
The structure shows the exchange working both ends of the customer spectrum at once: relatively accessible lucky-draw tasks for broader TradFi futures adoption and substantial fee incentives designed specifically for traders capable of generating millions of dollars in turnover.
Bitget Is Taking a Different Approach With 30% of Fee Revenue
Bitget’s new Alliance Program is more unusual because its reward pool is not advertised as a fixed dollar amount.
Instead, Bitget says it will establish a user pool equivalent to 30% of qualifying net transaction-fee revenue retained from eligible non-institutional users during the four-week campaign.
The promotion began September 28 and runs through October 26. Bitget says 60% of the pool will be distributed based on eligible trading activity, while 40% will be allocated according to qualifying assets held on the platform. Rewards are calculated weekly and paid in USDT.
Eligible VIP1 through VIP7 users also receive 30 days of VIP-level protection, allowing qualifying customers to maintain their existing benefits during the protection period.
The timing adds another layer to the program. Bitget said the initiative follows the security incident it identified on September 24 and framed the campaign as recognition for users who continued supporting the platform. The exchange has maintained that customer balances remained intact.
That makes the Alliance Program partly a trading incentive and partly a customer-retention exercise. Rather than simply paying traders for reaching a particular turnover target, Bitget is connecting the size of the reward pool to the economics of the exchange itself.
Biconomy Adds Another Futures Incentive Starting September 30
Biconomy is also entering the rewards race with its TEM Futures Carnival, which begins September 30 and runs through October 6.
The campaign offers up to 2,130 USDT in futures coupons through task rewards and TEMUSDT trading-volume milestones. Biconomy says eligible volume can also generate lucky-draw spins for additional prizes including crypto assets, XAUT tokenized gold and iPhone devices.
The mechanics are similar to a recent stock-and-FX futures campaign from Gate: exchanges are increasingly using volume-based promotions not merely to reward existing traders but to seed activity in specific derivatives markets.
That distinction matters because a newly launched contract needs more than a listing. It needs order-book depth, repeat traders and enough activity to keep spreads competitive. Promotions can provide the initial push.
The Real Competition Is to Become the Trader’s Only Account
Taken together, these promotions point to something larger than a busy week for exchange marketing.
Crypto platforms are competing to become multi-asset trading accounts.
A user who once opened KuCoin, Bitget or another exchange primarily to buy Bitcoin can increasingly trade equity-linked products, indices, gold, commodities, forex and leveraged derivatives without leaving the crypto-style interface or converting their USDT back into a traditional brokerage account.
This is why the rapid growth of tokenized stocks and stock-linked derivatives deserves more attention than the prize pools attached to them.
The lines between a crypto exchange and an online broker are starting to blur.
Other companies are moving in the same direction. Some firms are even seeking regulated routes for perpetual futures tied to U.S. stocks, suggesting that the always-on derivatives model developed in crypto could increasingly migrate into traditional financial markets.
The Reward Number Can Hide How Much Trading Is Required
There is another side to these campaigns that retail traders should not ignore.
The headline reward is rarely the most useful number.
KuCoin’s VIP challenge, for example, advertises thousands of dollars in potential fee coupons, but its highest milestone requires 10 million USDT in cumulative stock-trading volume. That is fundamentally different from receiving a 5,000 USDT cash bonus for simply opening an account.
Similarly, volume-based lucky draws encourage users to trade repeatedly. The value of the reward therefore has to be considered alongside trading fees, spreads, funding payments and the possibility of losses generated while trying to reach a target.
That becomes especially important with leveraged perpetual contracts. The CFTC has warned that leverage can amplify trading losses because traders fund only a fraction of the underlying exposure, making adverse price movements much more significant relative to the capital committed.
A trader should therefore separate two questions: Is the promotion attractive, and would the underlying trade have made sense without the promotion?
If the answer to the second question is no, a few spins, coupons or token rewards may be a poor reason to manufacture additional turnover.
The Bigger Test Comes After the Promotions End
For the exchanges, however, these campaigns can still be rational even if many users participate only temporarily.
The immediate objective is to expose existing crypto customers to new products. Some traders will leave when the rewards stop. Others may discover that they prefer keeping equity, commodity and crypto exposure inside the same account.
That is the customer behavior exchanges are ultimately trying to create.
KuCoin’s 161 TradFi pairs expand the product shelf. Its 100,000 USDT promotion gives users a reason to explore it. The VIP challenge targets the traders capable of producing the most revenue. Bitget’s fee-revenue pool rewards activity while reinforcing customer retention. Biconomy uses futures coupons and prize draws to push traders toward one specific market.
The campaigns look different, but the strategy is remarkably similar.
Crypto exchanges no longer want to compete only for crypto trading volume. They want the stock trade, the gold trade, the index trade and the futures trade too.
The real measure of success will come after the prize pools disappear. If trading volume remains, the rewards will have worked as customer-acquisition spending. If activity collapses as soon as the campaigns end, exchanges may simply have paid traders to temporarily inflate markets that were not yet ready to stand on their own.
Johan Shamshad is a financial markets writer at Dave Finances covering cryptocurrencies, trading platforms, brokers, fintech, financial regulation, and developments across global markets. He previously worked at Gulf News, adding newsroom experience to his coverage of fast-moving financial and digital-asset markets.
His work focuses on identifying market-moving events, company developments, regulatory changes, product launches, and shifts in trading and financial infrastructure.
Johan contributes news and analysis designed to help readers understand not only what happened, but why a development matters and how it may affect the wider financial landscape.