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Economy · 8 min read

AION 2: earning Kinah in free-to-play, methods and pitfalls

Without a membership you earn Kinah by playing (quests, sealed dungeons, monsters, Crobakhi’s Secret Depository, expedition cubes), but you can neither sell nor buy on the Market: your Kinah only pays for your own spending. Guides put the monster cap at 1,000,000 per day, and buying Kinah from third parties exposes you to a ban.

Updated 4 October 2026 · Sources: 10

Contents
  1. Kinah, bound Kinah, Quna: the basics
  2. What not having the membership changes
  3. The Kinah sources to know
  4. The daily cap
  5. Crafting: save rather than sell
  6. Where your Kinah goes
  7. Global or Korea: what differs
  8. Mistakes to avoid
  9. A 30-minute routine for a free player

Kinah, bound Kinah, Quna: the basics

Kinah is the game’s currency, “earned through gameplay” according to NC. It comes in two variants: regular Kinah, which can be traded (Market, personal trade, server storage), and bound Kinah, spent first at NPCs but not tradable and impossible to put in server storage. Quna is the premium currency, bought with real money (NC’s French announcements spell it “Luna”).

CurrencyWhere it comes fromWhat it is for
KinahMonsters; sales between players; Conquest expeditionsMarket, trades, server storage and all NPC spending
Bound KinahQuests, duty missions, sealed dungeons, garrisons, Exploration expeditionsNPC spending and enhancement, spent first; neither tradable nor storable in the warehouse
QunaShop purchase, or exchange with a memberShop and the paid Daeva Pass track

What not having the membership changes

On Global, NC reserves the Market for the Special Quai Membership ($14.99 for 30 days, valid on a single server): without it you can neither list nor buy. Personal trade and the Kinah ↔ Quna conversion are also member-only, and the Cross-Server Market, announced for later, will only open once servers reach a similar stage. In plain terms, a free player draws no Kinah from reselling.

Without a membership you cannot sell your items: keep them for a future piece or extract them, since extraction returns enhancement stones but not Kinah. So do not count on the level 35 or 45 gold items to get rich.

The Kinah sources to know

SourceKinah typeGood to know
Crobakhi’s Secret DepositoryBoundDaily dungeon, from level 30; up to 300,000 per run according to Game8, the fastest method cited
Expedition cubesBound (Exploration), regular (Conquest)You need Odyle Energy to open the cube; gains drop after several claims in the same dungeon
MonstersRegular1,000,000 per day cap according to guides; beyond it, farm materials, not coins
Duty missionsBound5 per day from level 45, limit shared per server; rerolling a mission costs Kinah
Sealed dungeons and garrisonsBoundFirst clear only: a steady source while leveling
Hidden cubesVariesRed cubes need a key, golden cubes do not; they hold Lucky Kina chests, among other things
QuestsBoundSteady reward, reserved for NPC spending

Keep the order of magnitude rather than the figures: these amounts come from guides and from Korea, and NC has published no earnings table for Global.

The daily cap

In Korea, NC lowered the field Kinah cap from 2,000,000 to 1,000,000 per day on 10 December 2025, explaining that fewer than 5% of players exceeded 500,000 a day; the stated goal was to remove any reason to run macros. Global guides repeat 1,000,000 per day, but NC has published no figure for Global: treat it as an estimate. Once the cap is reached, drops are also limited.

Crafting: save rather than sell

Without the Market, crafting is mostly about not spending: the best endgame pieces come from it, and every crafted piece is one purchase less. The five professions (blacksmithing, armorsmithing, handicrafting, alchemy, cooking) go up to mastery 100, with a free workbench. Recipes and full chains are on the Crafting page.

  • Craft at the workbench. Crafting away from it, from the menu, costs Kinah.
  • Keep a margin. A failure destroys the materials: craft with a mastery well above what the recipe asks, and keep big recipes for when you can afford to lose them.
  • Do not engrave a piece you meant to resell. Soul Engraving makes it bound.
  • Gather what your profession needs. Odyle appears in almost every recipe; the supply merchants in Verteron and Altgard sell the rest at fixed prices.

Where your Kinah goes

The big sink is enhancement: according to client data, taking an item level 54 weapon from +0 to +10 costs about 488,000 Kinah and 19,440 stones, and from +11 to +15 about 2.6 million Kinah and 31,800 stones, failures excluded. Add mission rerolls, whose cost climbs with each attempt (up to 300,000 for weekly commands according to Game8), and crafting. That is why you keep enhancement at +5 while leveling and only really invest at level 45.

Global or Korea: what differs

PointGlobalKorea
MarketMembers only, local to the server; Cross-Server Market announced with no dateCross-server market since 10 December 2025, taxed at double the server market
Daily monster cap1,000,000 according to guides, not confirmed by NC1,000,000 since 10 December 2025 (2,000,000 before)
Kinah typesRegular and boundRegular and bound, called “engraved”, since 25 March 2026
Sharing between charactersKinah transferable between characters on a server, with limitsAccount-wide Kinah sharing announced in December 2025

Mistakes to avoid

  • Buying or selling Kinah outside the game, using a bot or staying AFK with a macro. Players on the Korean and Taiwanese services cite these practices, along with selling currency for real money, among ban reasons.
  • Selling your enhancement materials. You will need huge amounts, and extraction never returns Kinah.
  • Over-enhancing while leveling. Beyond +5 you spend Kinah and stones on gear you will soon replace.
  • Wasting mission rerolls. Keep the ones that give hidden cube keys and only reroll the rest.
  • Buying the membership on the wrong server. It only applies on the server of purchase: pick your main character’s.

A 30-minute routine for a free player

  1. Duty missions (from level 45)

    Take the day’s 5 missions, keep the ones that give hidden cube keys, reroll the rest sparingly.

  2. Crobakhi’s Secret Depository

    One run a day for bound Kinah, before your other daily dungeons.

  3. Expedition cubes

    Spend your Odyle Energy on the content whose loot you want, and always open the cube.

  4. Useful hunting

    Farm the monsters whose materials you want: the Kinah comes along, up to the cap. Track it all in your Routine.

Frequently asked questions

Can you earn Kinah without a membership?

Yes: quests, duty missions, sealed dungeons, monsters, Crobakhi’s Secret Depository and expedition cubes all give it. But without a membership you can neither sell nor buy on the Market, so your Kinah only pays for your own spending.

What is the daily Kinah cap?

Guides give 1,000,000 Kinah per day from monsters. That is the Korean cap since 10 December 2025; NC has published no official figure for Global.

What is the difference between Kinah and bound Kinah?

Regular Kinah is tradable (Market, server storage); bound Kinah is not, cannot be put in server storage and is spent first at NPCs.

What should I do with items I cannot sell?

Keep them if you plan to take the membership later, or extract them: extraction returns enhancement stones, never Kinah.

Can I buy Kinah?

Not outside the game: buying currency from third parties is among the ban reasons players cite. In game, only the Kinah ↔ Quna conversion between players, reserved for members, exists.

Sources

Every fact is cross-checked; reliability ranges from 1 (rumor) to 5 (official).