Forcing KYC was the one of the reason for once number one exchange Bitrex to move down to 7th position at current time.
KUCoin is not even in top 30. What will be the effect of such move be on the exchange and cryptocurrency overall?
https://news.kucoin.com/en/kucoin-will-enforce-kyc-for-users/
I agree with your thoughts. This will scare off a large number of users. The most important thing is that this will kill multi-accounting. Not the smartest decision, but I think that this decision was dictated by security measures, it is still better to lose place in the top, than to lose the project at all, and go to jail. I think that in the future it is waiting for all centralized exchanges.