OKEx Crypto Exchange Review Philippines

OKEx is the second biggest crypto exchange worldwide by volume. It is under OKCoin, similar to how Coinbase owns Coinbase Pro. Furthermore, it is designed for experienced traders and maybe a bit complex for newbies.

OKEx was founded in China last 2014 but recently relocated to Malta, a safe regulatory haven for many crypto companies. Unfortunately, it might have adopted China’s stringent regulation on cryptocurrencies as it is a bit conservative on who can use its services. OKEx currently prohibits customers from USA, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Syria, Cuba, Iran, and many other countries from trading on their platform.

Crypto Trading

The exchange has numerous trading pairs (almost 400) and also offers a fiat gateway. Moreover, they offer a “Favorites” tab for users to mark tokens they want to keep an eye on.

Futures Trading

First of all, we need to define a Futures contract, which is an agreement to trade an asset at a predetermined price at a specified date in the future. Futures trading is simply the trading of these contracts.

It is a Virtual Financial Asset (VFA) derivative trading service and platform designed by OKEx. These VFAs include BTC, BCH, LTC, ETH, ETC, and others approved by the exchange.

OKB Token

OKB is the exchange’s native token with a total supply of 1 billion with only 300 million in current circulation. It is used to incentivize investors to use OKEx by offering them advantages such as service fee rebates, depending on the amount of OKB they are holding.

Fees

OKex charges 0.1% for both maker and taker fees to all crypto trading pairs. As for fiat trading, it currently has no fee structure since February last year.

For futures trading, they charge 0.015% for the maker, taker, and settlement fee for BTC, respectively. With ETH, ETC, LTC, it’s a little varied: 0.025% maker fee, 0.075% taker fee, and 0.05% settlement fee.

IEO

OKEx recently launched its own IEO platform called OK Jumpstart, offering the token sale of BLOC. Allegedly, all 500 million BLOC tokens were sold out in less than a second last April 10. The exchange received criticisms and complaints from users regarding how the IEO turned out.

Some pointed out the fact that the exchange must have had printed 200 million more OKB since each trader is required to have a minimum of 500 OKB to participate, and there were reportedly over a million subscribers, which means there must have been at least 500 million OKB while the reported circulating supply is only 300 million.

Update: However, during the Bloc IEO, the sale price was 0.005 USDT or 1 OKB = 400 BLOC. This means only 1.25M OKB would be needed for the token sale to sold out. Details of the BLOC sale can be found on this page. 

This article first appeared on BitPinas: OKEx Crypto Exchange Review Philippines

Resources: BTC News, Okex, Blockonomi