OKEx is an innovative cryptocurrency exchange that makes it easy to buy, sell, or trade cryptocurrencies but is currently not available to U.S. residents. Instead, U.S. residents can access its sister exchange, OKCoin, but this exchange platform doesn’t offer as many coins or features.
OKEx offers advanced financial services as well as excellent primers for anyone new to crypto. It boasts an impressive list of services that include flexible borrowing and ways to earn interest on staked tokens. OKEx provides simple and complex trading tools and, if you’re interested, an on-ramp into proof-of-work crypto mining and DeFi liquidity mining. Read our full OKEx review to learn more about its many offerings.
OKEx cryptocurrency exchange is a good fit for: Non-U.S. residents who are crypto-curious, as well as experienced day traders and professional brokers.
OKEx Pros
- Allows a wide array of fiat currencies to open an account
- Educational resources
- Broad suite of offerings
- High Staking APY’s
- Hundreds of trading pairs
- Buy/Sell dashboard that’s easy to use
- Tech support that responds quickly via online chat
OKEx Cons
- Not available to residents in several countries, including the U.S.
- Very complex, multi-tiered fee structure
OKEx Top Features
Educational resources spanning from novice to professional
Under the “Learn” section of OKEx’s website, you can access dozens of beginner tutorials and videos to help you get started. OKEx also provides timely articles, industry analysis, and the opportunity to become an OKEx broker.
Access to new DeFi projects via liquidity mining
Decentralized finance, or DeFi, is one of the fastest growing areas of smart contracts and blockchains. A key driver of this growth is liquidity mining. This is where users who provide liquidity to a decentralized protocol can passively earn its tokens in exchange. The return from liquidity mining can be much higher than that of staking.
OKEx’s Jumpstart Mining initiative allows you to farm DeFi tokens while supporting your chosen projects by staking OKB, OKEx’s ecosystem token.
Earn fractional amounts of Bitcoin every day
OKEx also has a unique loyalty program that rewards regular use of its mobile app. Every day, five new “learning missions” are posted to the app, which require watching a video or reading an article. The completion of each task rewards the user with 50 Satoshis; each Satoshi is equal to roughly 100 millionth of a full Bitcoin. When the user earns 10,000 Satoshis, the rewards can be converted into an equal amount of Bitcoin, which can be held, staked, or traded on OKEx.
How OKEx Exchange works
OKEx is an innovative cryptocurrency exchange with advanced financial services built on blockchain technology to provide trading, investment, and learning resources.
It’s one of the largest crypto exchanges in the world based on trading volume. Serving millions of users in more than 100 countries, it offers access to hundreds of tokens and trading pairs. In addition to futures trading, it provides a range of services. This includes:
- Spot trading
- Margin trading
- Options
- Perpetual swaps
- Decentralized finance (DeFi)
- Lending
- Crypto mining services
OKEx trading
From the home page, you can select “Basic Trading,” which allows for spot and simple option trading.
You can also select “Margin Trading.” This will allow you to use leverage to try to amplify returns when trading in futures, advanced options, and perpetual swaps. The advanced service allows professional traders to engage in sophisticated transactions involving multi-currencies to maximize profits.
To use the advanced functions, you have to apply and be approved. So beginners don’t have to worry about making a costly mistake. There’s also a “demo trading” feature that allows novices to practice trading with no risk.
Staking your crypto on OKEx
OKEx provides interest-bearing staking accounts for more than 100 different tokens and projects. Each has its own annual percentage yield (APY) based on whether you choose a fixed or flexible holding period. It’s worth noting that some of the coins have minimum staking requirements, such as Ethereum, which won’t allow you to stake less than 0.02 ETH.
OKEx Wallet
The exchange platform has a native wallet feature that’s accessible by downloading the wallet app separately. The wallet supports 36 digital assets and multiple vaults and integrates seamlessly with the main OKEx trading app.
Crypto mining pools
OKEx also lets users try their hand at crypto mining by joining a miner pool.
A miner pool connects individual miners from around the world and pools their hash rate (a series of mathematical steps) together. This way, they’re all mining at a higher level, giving them meaningful odds of solving a proof-of-work block. Pooling is necessary because the odds of an individual miner solving a block on their own are slim to none.
On OKEx, once a block has been solved, the rewards will be split up among mining pool members according to how much computing power each contributed. OKEx offers 11 proof-of-work mining pools to choose from, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin, along with tutorials on how to join each.
Flexible lending options
OKEx also allows different forms of decentralized financing spanning 29 digital assets. It offers traditional DeFi options using Aave, dYdX, Compound, DDEX, and Maker. These have varying interest rates determined by the platform and the token type you’d like to borrow. OKEx also enables peer-to-peer lending services with flexible terms.
OKEx Fees overview
OKEx’s complicated fee schedule is divided into two tiers, with multiple levels within each tier. Below are the tiers only for spot trading, to provide an example of the fee scheduling complexity.
For regular users, your fees are based on the number of OKB you hold. OKB is the native cryptocurrency of the OKEx exchange. The more OKB you hold within the OKEx ecosystem, the lower your fees. Generally speaking, the “maker fee” is paid by the person who initiates the order to buy or sell, while the other party that completes the complementary transaction pays the “taker fee.”
OKEx Cryptocurrency selection
OKEx supports hundreds of tokens and coin pairs on its trading site to buy, sell, or trade using leverage or your own on-chain portfolio.
For the most popular cryptocurrencies, it has an “instant” buy/sell box without any charts, graphs, or order books. It’s simple and easy to use for the following digital assets:
- Bitcoin (BTC)
- Ethereum (ETH)
- Tether (USDT)
- Litecoin (LTC)
- Ripple (XRP)
- Bitcoin Cash (BCH)
- Dogecoin (DOGE)
- Cardano (ADA)
- Polkadot (DOT)
- Polygon (MATIC)
OKEx is right for you if:
You don’t live in the U.S.
You’re a rookie or veteran of cryptocurrency trading and investing
You’re looking for a robust suite of crypto-based financial and trading services
You’re curious about exploring crypto or liquidity mining as passive revenue streams
You like the idea of a crypto exchange with a fully integrated wallet and native coin