OKX Review

Summary: OKX is a global cryptocurrency exchange that handles over $35 billion daily volume, consistently ranking second on both the spot and derivatives markets, outperforming its competitors.

OKX's UX-optimized design enables a seamless transition between the centralized trading services and the exotic depths of decentralized finance (DeFi) via the OKX Web3 wallet, which gives users complete self-custody and control over their private keys and funds.

What Is OKX?

OKX, founded in 2017 by Star Xu (@star_okx), is a globally recognized cryptocurrency exchange now based in Seychelles. The platform offers a wide array of services, including spot trading for over 320 cryptocurrencies and derivatives contracts such as futures and options with up to 100x leverage.

OKX differentiates as a versatile crypto platform, offering a centralized exchange (CEX) and a decentralized Web3 wallet. Its intuitively optimized UX design makes the OKX website and app an all-inclusive hub used by over 50 million crypto enthusiasts from all experience levels.

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OKX Key Features

OKX differentiates itself from other crypto platforms for several reasons, including its competitive fee structure, extensive futures trading opportunities, and seamless integration of centralized and decentralized markets. Here is a list of OKX’s key features:

1. Instant Buy and Sell: OKX offers trading of 320+ cryptocurrencies at real-time rates using spot markets, express buy, zero-fee convert tool, or the P2P marketplace that supports 93+ fiat currencies.
2. Futures and Options Trading: Aimed at advanced traders speculating on future crypto price movements, offering long or short positions with high liquidity and leverage up to 100x on perpetual swaps with both a crypto and a stablecoin margin option.
3. Beginner-Friendly Tools: A platform for practice trading with demo trading using paper money or copy trade top-performing bots and experienced traders with real capital.
4. Web3 Wallet: OKX’s wallet bridges the gap between its exchange and DeFi, enabling seamless cryptocurrency swapping across 22+ blockchain networks, supporting a wide range of digital assets including NFTs, BRC-20 Tokens, and Ordinals offers access to decentralized yield-earning products. It also includes self-custodial decentralized trading and a variety of additional DeFi tools.
5. Earn Products For Yield: Earn yield through a variety of products like simple earn, on-chain earn, and structured products on the exchange, and over 7 more decentralized choices on the wallet platform for staking and yield farming.
6. Mobile App: a highly-rated mobile app, available on both iOS and Android, that mirrors the full functionality of its desktop platform, all wrapped in an intuitive and user-friendly interface.
7. Drawbacks: Fiat-to-Bank withdrawals are not supported and OKX is not available in the USA and Canada.

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OKX Futures

Futures trading on OKX includes both traditional (expiry) cryptocurrency futures with an expiration date and perpetual futures, which allow you to hold a profitable position indefinitely. In more detail:

1. Traditional (Expiry) Futures: OKX offers Crypto-Margined and USDC-Margined Expiry Futures. Both are settled in their respective currencies with varying contract sizes. Both types of futures have a delivery date (Friday of the week of delivery at 8:00 am UTC). Traditional futures primarily focus on BTC and ETH paired with USDC and support up to 50x leverage.
2. Perpetual Futures: Come in the same two categories as well while supporting 150 trading pairs with up to 100x leverage. Crypto-Margined Perpetual Futures are settled in cryptocurrencies, with a contract size of 100 USD while USDC-Margined Perpetual Futures are settled in USDC.
3. Supported Pairs: As of April 2024, there are 62 USDC and 52 EUR pairs on the OKX’s perp swap page.

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Is OKX Safe and Regulated?

OKX rebranded from OKEx in 2022, has established itself as one of the most secure cryptocurrency exchanges worldwide. The platform employs a variety of measures to safeguard users’ funds, including two-factor authentication (2FA), password protection, mobile biometrics security, SSL encryption, and cold storage. Here are the most important OKX’s safety and regulatory compliance facts:

• CEX Safety Through Proof-Of-Reserves: Users prefer OKX over other platforms because it is transparent in its holdings and provides proof-of-reserves, ensuring that customer funds are backed 1:1. In fact, the exchange boasts the second most assets under management, with over $29 billion in crypto held on the platform and is now ranked second among all CEXs.‍
• Web3 Wallet Security: The OKX wallet is secured like any typical cold Web3 wallet with a twelve-word seed phrase, a strong password, private key storage, and additional security measures such as face ID or fingerprint authentication for login.‍
• Know-Your-Customer (KYC): OKX is committed to secure and regulated trading; it enforces KYC/AML procedures and is expanding its licensed operations. Users must follow their local laws, especially in jurisdictions where OKX services are restricted, to ensure a compliant and informed trading experience and to reduce the chance of freezing of funds.
• Licenses: OKX holds several licenses, included a Virtual Asset Services Provider (VASP) licensed granted by the Seychelles FSA, a license from VARA in Dubai, a VASP license in Hong Kong and several others. This makes it one of the most well-regulated platforms globally.‍

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OKX Trading Fees

OKX’s competitive fee structure contributes to its popularity. While deposits are free, certain third-party fees may apply depending on the payment method used. Crypto withdrawals incur a small fee to cover network costs, whereas fiat withdrawals are free.

OKX offers spot and futures trading with initial fees of 0.08% for makers (those who add liquidity to the market) and 0.1% for takers (those who take liquidity from the market). Holding over 1000 $OKB, the exchange’s native token reduces these fees to 0.06% on spot trading. Futures trading fees can vary due to different types of derivatives. Holding more OKB can further reduce USDT-M futures maker/taker fees to rebates of 0.02%/0.05% respectively.

There are also eight different VIP levels for users with a high 30-day trading volume, which can reduce maker fees to -0.005% and taker fees to 0.015% on spot USDT pairs.

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OKX Earn

OKX excels in its diverse yield-earning opportunities on both its CEX and Web3 wallet. The annual percentage yield (APY) varies, starting from 3% for stablecoin or blue-chip single asset staking, and can escalate to over 200% for higher-risk DeFi pools.

• Simple Earn: Yields come from lending to leverage traders and staking rewards on proof-of-stake protocols.
• On-Chain Earn: The returns are derived from staking in validator nodes and DeFi protocols (see ETH Staking example below).
• Structured Products: Returns come from interest on derivatives, depending on the price movements during the subscription period.

The Web3 Wallet offers even more yield-earning opportunities by leveraging DeFi. These include:

• Stablecoin Yield Farming: Investment in stables like USDT, USDC, DAI.
• Bonus: Investments yielding additional rewards from OKX Web3 DeFi.
• Single Crypto: Investment in individual tokens, avoiding impermanent losses.
• Multiple Crypto: Investments requiring multiple tokens, potential for impermanent losses.
• Vaults: Yield aggregator optimizing returns on deposited tokens.
• BRC-20 Staking: staking BRC20 tokens for reward tokens on BRC20-S.

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OKX Web3 Wallet

OKX integrates its Web3 wallet into both its mobile and desktop applications, unlike other platforms like Coinbase, which separates them into two different products. The OKX wallet is notable for supporting over 22 blockchains, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana, and is compatible with popular hardware wallets such as Ledger and Trezor. The key features of the OKX Web3 wallet are:

1. DEX and Bridge Aggregator: Enables cryptocurrency swapping across 20+ blockchain networks.
2. Web3 Marketplace: Supports NFTs, BRC-20, and Ordinals collections.
3. DeFi Yield Aggregator: Access to 7 decentralized yield-earning products including yield farming, staking, vaults, and even BRC-20 staking.
4. Decentralized Trading: Offers self-custodial decentralized spot and derivatives trading with a maximum leverage of 20x for BTC and ETH and 10x for SOL (both are in testnet phase as of now).
5. Additional DeFi Tools: Includes dApps, blockchain explorers, and a Web3 events calendar.

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Bottom Line

OKX is a flexible crypto platform that can handle both centralized exchange and decentralized Web3 wallet needs. OKX offers a wide range of features, including spot and futures trading and DeFi yield aggregators, as well as a user-friendly design across desktop and mobile applications, making it a comprehensive and intuitive hub for crypto enthusiasts of all levels.