OKEx rebrands to ‘OKX’ as it evolves to suit decentralized services

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Digital currency exchange OKEx is rebranding to “OKX.” The new name, which sounds the same if you say it aloud, reflects the company’s dedication to “the new frontier of this wave of technological revolution”—including a suite of DeFi products, NFTs, games, and metaverses.

The name and image change, OKX says, will move the company forward into a more decentralized future where digital assets intersect with other newly-created experiences. The “X” represents the unknown and yet-to-be-explored possibilities in the financial and virtual realms.

New year, new us.

To continue our commitment to the advancement of the #crypto industry and #Web3, we've rebranded to #OKX.

Join us at the world's leading crypto ecosystem.

Read more about our rebrand here ⤵️https://t.co/SQPNR1Ieyk pic.twitter.com/WYJqjS70lt

— OKX (@okx) January 18, 2022

The company’s official announcement says it began life as a centralized exchange “because that was what was needed and feasible for our industry to grow.” The “Ex” in its name “represents the open marketplace … for everyone to freely access and exchange their crypto assets.”

“We are building so much more than a centralized exchange. It is time for us to evolve our brand to reflect what we stand for and what we are building toward. We want to venture with you into the possibilities that exist ahead of us—intersections between crypto and so many worlds we’ll enter together. Finance (DeFi) and gaming (play-to-earn) are just the starting points. That’s why we’re dropping the E and dialing up the X to pave that path. We hope this change will help the journey each of you takes through our platform, whether trading, staking or going through one of the metaverses,” it added.

OKX has been around in several forms since 2013 when it launched as the OKCoin.cn Bitcoin exchange in China. Later, there was an international version called OKCoin.com (which still exists as a fiat-supporting exchange in some markets). The all-digital-asset OKEx came along a few years later in combination with the International Digital Asset Exchange (IDAX). Since its launch, it has expanded into other markets, including the European Union, the United States, and Latin America.

The company is based in Hong Kong, with some trading services provided by Seychelles-registered Aux Cayes FinTech Co. Ltd (say that name aloud too). It claims to have over 20 million users worldwide. As well as spot trading between numerous digital assets, OKX also has digital currency loans, the OKEx Pool Hedging Service for leveraged trading, USDT-margined futures and other coin-margined options, a Staking service (similar to a mining pool for Proof of Stake blockchains).

OKX’s MetaX network includes a range of decentralized blockchain (DeFi and DApp) services, mostly based on Ethereum and the company’s native OKExChain (OEC). The DeFi hub has a number of asset-trading, lending, and derivatives options, including Uniswap, Bancor, SushiSwap, BadgerDAO, and Maker.

There’s also an NFT (and fungible token) marketplace based on Ethereum’s ERC-721 and ERC-1155 standards. The “Primary” market is for high-profile collections, the “Secondary” market is for trading previously-bought tokens, and the “My NFT” section allows users to create and sell their own tokenized assets.

MetaX will also include a self-custody wallet supporting multiple blockchains, so users don’t need to send assets to a centralized hosted wallet. The OEC chain offers 1,000 transactions per second, and has a native token called OKT.

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