Last Updated on March 22, 2020

OKEx is one of the top in the world volume wise exchanges in the world and we had a chance to ask some questions to their CEO Jay Hao. As you are aware we do not just go for normal questions but also aim for stuff other places wouldnt ask and we got answers from OKEx exchange that should shout mouth of any haters.

Tell us who you are and what you do on OKEx ?

Hi everyone, I’m Jay Hao, CEO of OKEx. I’m also the chief customer support officer responsible for handling customer enquiries related to our products, haha. You’re always welcome to give us any suggestions on my Twitter https://twitter.com/jayhao8.

Before we get into questions targeted mostly about the exchange, how did you enter the blockchain industry? What do you think about it?

I always believe that blockchain technology can revolutionize the world’s economy by eliminating trading barriers and increasing transaction efficiency. We’re building OKEx as the most trustable exchange while driving the industry forward.

When OKcoin started what was main goal of it ? Whats the difference between OKCoin and Okex ?

OKCoin and OKEx might share a similar name and some of the same investors, but OKCoin focuses on global compliance of crypto trading while OKEx’s major business is crypto derivatives trading. This working relationship enables both brands to contribute to the blockchain ecosystem in different areas.

Digital asset exchanges aim to align with traders’ value and interest by offering easy-to-use trading and risk hedging tools, such as derivatives contracts and options, to cater to their needs. OKEx was among the first to support digital asset trading, hoping to reconstruct a global trusted network to tackle the inadequacy of today’s financial system.

We have now OKEx and OKEx Korea. Is this due to legal reasons or rather you keep each part of exchange separate all over the globe ? Ie OKEx Singapore, Europe, USA etc.

OKEx provides services to certain countries and regions descibed here: https://okexsupport.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360021813691

OKEx Korea is taylored to Korean regulations and to provide better services to Korean residence. Products includes Fiat – Crypto trading and Crypto – Crypto trading. We currently focus on globalization, and would love to collaborate with excellent local partners to offer our cuustomers better experiences.OKEx provides services to certain countries and regions descibed here: https://okexsupport.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360021813691 OKEx Korea is taylored to Korean regulations and to provide better services to Korean residence. Products includes Fiat – Crypto trading and Crypto – Crypto trading.

We currently focus on globalization, and would love to collaborate with excellent local partners to offer our cuustomers better experiences.

What do you think is most unique thing in OKEx that others dont have or try to have but didnt make yet

OKEx tops the choices of crypto traders in many ways. One would be that OKEx is a one-stop for traders. It has been creating a parallel ecology on blockchain that includes C2C trading, spot/margin trading, futures trading, OKEx Pool and Wallet. We are one of the top digital asset exchanges by trading volume, serving millions of users in over 100 countries, who also has never involved in any security breaches and has maintained the stability of the systems adhering to the TP99999 standard.

Now you have token called OKB. What is the use of it and what are future ideas?

Yes $OKB is a global utility token issued by OK Blockchain Foundation. It allows OKEx users to perform various tasks such as setting up an OKEx partner exchange, settling trading fees, and subscribing for new tokens on the token sale platform OK Jumpstart. We will keep empowering OKB and developing the OKB ecosystem by building on more use cases in real life. A new road map of $OKB will be announced SOON.Yes $OKB is a global utility token issued by OK Blockchain Foundation. It allows OKEx users to perform various tasks such as setting up an OKEx partner exchange, settling trading fees, and subscribing for new tokens on the token sale platform OK Jumpstart. We will keep empowering OKB and developing the OKB ecosystem by building on more use cases in real life. A new road map of $OKB will be announced SOON.

Many asian based exchanges allow trading and withdrawals of up to 2 BTC with no KYC or AML, whats your take on this ?

I’m not quite sure which exactly are those exchanges. As far as I know, top-tier cryptocurrency exchanges around the world have standardized KYC procedures in general. Just like we have KYC & AML in OKEx to comply with the mainstream regulatory requirements. And right now, we have three levels of KYC verifications. Just visit our website for more detailed information.

Give us some predictions for 2020,2021 of what you think will happen with bitcoin and cryptocurrency. Not just price wise but also legal or adoption.

First of all, I think the number of people learning and joining this industry will grow exponentially. On the other hand, although regulation and compliance is always a tough issue in crypto industry, we see more breakthroughs this year, like the Libra project, and during the FATF week, there are 205 countries representatives discussed about stablecoin, crypto assets, and related regulation issues with IMF, UN, the World Bank etc. In the coming two years, we will see more like this and I’m sure fintech will enter more countries and regions. As for price forecast, we are not going to make any here.

You guys plan to release OkDEX. Do you think DEXes will overtake normal crypto-crypto trading at some point or rather they are just an addon ?

We have been thinking about our role in the blockchain ecosystem. Our core value lies in “credit enhancement”, and in spot trading is currently the most urgent kind for credit enhancement services. Therefore, what we provide is a kind of service, that is not limited to a certain technical form. In fact, not all things must be solved in the most efficient way. Sometimes users pay more attention to security or say – fairness. OKEx believes that decentralized exchanges provide users with a more comprehensive credit enhancement service. They are not a replacement but an add-on to the existing products in the market.

On OKEx Summit we had plenty other exchanges ie Binance or Bibox, how does parnership between competitors look like do you guys work on soem stuff together or rather never talk to each other ?

As the co-host of Delta Summit, we welcome peer companies to participate in this event.We hope to work with all companies in the industries to promote the healthy and rapid development of the industry. We believe that the blockchain industry will maintain a high-speed development momentum under the benign competition of all companies. In addition, we are also very willing to communicate with other companies in the industry and promote each other.

What do you think about BTI’s claim that 90% of OKEx’s trading volume is fake?

First of all, at OKEx, we do not tolerate any wash trading activities whatsoever, and we will never carry out wash trading by ourselves since we don’t even have a trading team, and we will also never trade with our users. OKEx’s function is as the platform which provides trading service for our users.

As for BTI’s report, the allegation of OKEX’s wash trading is not correct, and especially the conclusion that 90% of OKEx’s trading is fake. We can challenge them for a stake of 100BTC that they are wrong, and we will prove that 10%+ of our trading volume is real, in which case BTI will give us 100 BTC. If not, we will give them 100BTC. If they don’t accept this challenge, they must apologize for their false allegation. Also, they are welcomed to our office and investigate thoroughly into the real data.

Generally speaking, the BTI report is de-facto an apple-to-orange comparison. As we know, lots of different methodologies can be used to determine an exchange’s trading volume and they yield different results. Some reports simply lack the comprehensiveness needed to deliver an accurate result. In fact, OKEx’s market structure is very different from that of our counterparts. Because of our derivatives, a big portion of OKEx’s traders are top-tier trading professionals from hedge funds, proprietary traders and high-frequency trading firms. Thus, using a matrix that relies on retail-oriented parameters such as website/mobile traffic is not an effective method for measuring for OKEx’s trading volume.

In addition, OKEx has joined the DATA (Data Accountability and Transparency Alliance) launched by CoinMarketCap on 1st May 2019 as one of the first stakeholders to show our data transparency and prove that we are not engaged in any wash trading activities. Also, based on their user experience, some top traders all agree that OKEx’s products bring them the best experience in the crypto industry. In conclusion, OKEx will prove that we are the most liquid crypto market in the world.

First of all, at OKEx, we do not tolerate any wash trading activities whatsoever, and we will never carry out wash trading by ourselves since we don’t even have a trading team, and we will also never trade with our users. OKEx’s function is as the platform which provides trading service for our users.

As for BTI’s report, the allegation of OKEX’s wash trading is not correct, and especially the conclusion that 90% of OKEx’s trading is fake. We can challenge them for a stake of 100BTC that they are wrong, and we will prove that 10%+ of our trading volume is real, in which case BTI will give us 100 BTC. If not, we will give them 100BTC. If they don’t accept this challenge, they must apologize for their false allegation. Also, they are welcomed to our office and investigate thoroughly into the real data.

Generally speaking, the BTI report is de-facto an apple-to-orange comparison. As we know, lots of different methodologies can be used to determine an exchange’s trading volume and they yield different results. Some reports simply lack the comprehensiveness needed to deliver an accurate result. In fact, OKEx’s market structure is very different from that of our counterparts. Because of our derivatives, a big portion of OKEx’s traders are top-tier trading professionals from hedge funds, proprietary traders and high-frequency trading firms. Thus, using a matrix that relies on retail-oriented parameters such as website/mobile traffic is not an effective method for measuring for OKEx’s trading volume.

In addition, OKEx has joined the DATA (Data Accountability and Transparency Alliance) launched by CoinMarketCap on 1st May 2019 as one of the first stakeholders to show our data transparency and prove that we are not engaged in any wash trading activities. Also, based on their user experience, some top traders all agree that OKEx’s products bring them the best experience in the crypto industry. In conclusion, OKEx will prove that we are the most liquid crypto market in the world.

What you will do to respond BTI?

Firstly, we will prove the baseless statement from BTI. Their claim that OKEx has 90% fake trading volume is totally wrong. Secondly, we will do an analysis on our side with the same methodology according to BTI‘s report, and it will be proven that OKEx’s liquidity is much better than the so-called BTI verified exchanges. Last but not the least, we question whether or not BTI is really an unbiased research institution? We cannot even see their team members in their website, and what are the relationships between BTI and the exchanges they have listed in their web? Can we really trust their data? There are also many questions that we may ask before accepting their data and results.

What do you think about “wash trading”?

There may be some malicious wash trading in the market, but OKEx is not involved in any of these activities. In fact, some projects may involve their marketing markers to increase their market depth so that their traders can have better user experiences. Also, the quantitative traders will also make some bots to assist their high-frequency trading activities. In these cases, I don’t think they should be taken as “wash trading” because it is just used to increase the market depth to allow traders to buy/sell more easily and conveniently.

Thank you for the interview.