Cryptocurrency trading platforms have evolved and OKEx is proof of that. Currently, this platform not only offers peer-to-peer exchange services for bitcoin and other crypto assets, but also integrates trading with cryptocurrency derivatives, P2P loans, mining pools, among others. Within this review we will evaluate and compare each of its different characteristics to find out how good, safe and reliable OKEx is.

What is OKEx?
In short, OKEx is a financial services suite in the cryptocurrency area . This suite integrates the exchange of crypto assets, margin trading with leverage in operations with cryptocurrency derivatives (futures, options and perpetual swaps). In addition to this, it has P2P markets for buying / selling cryptocurrency and guaranteed loans.

The OKEx platform has an application for web, Android and iOS, in addition to the browser.

OKEx has more than 500 assets or trading pairs available, comparable to the more than 300 offered by Bitfinex, although falling below the almost 1000 available on Binance. It occupies the 16th place in the world ranking of exchanges according to CoinMarketCap and has a daily trade volume of approximately USD 2 billion.

Outside the scope of cryptocurrency trading or exchange, within OKEx you will find: cryptocurrency wallet, platform for launching custom tokens (Jumpstar), API to build your own exchange with OKEx technology (OKEx Cloud), own Blockchain (OKExChain) and an academy to learn terms and concepts about OKEx, Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, although unfortunately the latter is only in English.

Can I earn money on OKEx?
The quick answer is yes. This is thanks to the fact that we are talking about a trading platform that allows you to generate income from the negotiation of a financial instrument available in OKEx or, with the P2P purchase and sale of cryptocurrencies.

In addition to trading, OKEx allows you to generate profits, among other options, through:

Affiliate system : you can earn at least 30% of the trading commissions that your affiliates generate by operating within OKEx.

Interests for doing HODL : OKEx has a section called ” Earn ” that allows you to generate interest depending on the cryptocurrency that you hodle . Recommendations range from depositing on the Compound loan platform to making P2P loans within OKEx.

OKEx Pool : sharing your computing resources in this mining group of criptomonedas, get daily income to extract one or more of the 10 currencies available to undermine: BTC, BCH, BSV, ETH, LTC, DASH, DCR, XMR, BTM and BTG .

Learn about crypto : OKEx gives you a free small amount of satoshis for doing small tasks, like reading about how to buy OKB or learning about Blockchain within the OKEx academy.

Buy and sell cryptocurrencies
OKEx puts at your disposal a specialized section for the purchase and sale of cryptocurrencies by national currency. This section is called Buy / Sell and comprises three trading options CriptOS: Trading Fast , Trading P2P and Commerce blocks .

Fast trading
This option allows platform traders who do not have crypto assets to get hold of them quickly in exchange for fiat money. The interesting thing about this option is that it works more like a search engine than a direct purchase and sale application within OKEx.

Quick Trading Option. Source : OKEx.
When selecting a currency, a cryptocurrency and a payment method, whether to buy or sell, a search will be executed among the different online cryptocurrency buying / selling service providers. The results are organized according to who offers the best price according to the chosen payment method. For Latin America, the service provider is Paxful .

The payment methods you will have vary depending on the currency you choose. These can range from using Visa or MasterCard cards to bank transfers and payment processors like Google Pay and ApplePay, among others.

P2P market
The P2P market is another way that you will have to generate income with the purchase and sale of cryptocurrencies within OKEx. In it you can trade cryptocurrencies for national currency with other users based on a reputation and escrow system, or escrow.

Unfortunately, this module is quite limited for the Spanish-speaking market since currently only 4 national currencies are traded, all Asian: Russian ruble, Vietnamese dong, Chinese yuan and Indian rupee. Bank transfers, Alipay, and WeChatpay are the available payment methods.

What do I need to trade on OKEx?
In addition to funds to operate, you must register with your email and pass at least level 1 KYC verification. This level corresponds to uploading a photo of a legal identity document. This is because, if you don’t, you won’t be able to make withdrawals. When you go up to level 1, you will have a maximum withdrawal limit of 0.5 BTC every 24 hours.

What does OKEx offer you to trade?
This trading market is what you will find on any cryptocurrency exchange. It is also known under the name of Spot trading, since you buy (sell) and receive (deliver) the traded asset, in this case cryptocurrencies, on a defined specific date.

OKEx Spot trading is divided into 2 types: basic and advanced. The first one focuses on the exchange with few graphical trading tools, although it does have all the types of orders available in OKEx.

In the case of advanced trading, you will have at your disposal in addition to 8 different types of orders, graphs both typical of OKEx and Trading View, along with all the plugins and indicators that this trading analysis platform offers.

Margin Trading
In margin trading, you are essentially borrowing funds from the crypto exchange to open a position and therefore they will charge you interest on any positions held overnight. Like any other crypto exchange, OKEx charges a margin interest rate as soon as the funds are borrowed. The interest rate margin vary drastically depending common or are a VIP user.

When comparing OKEx’s daily interest rates for 3 important cryptocurrencies, on the date of this review, with that of its Binance and Huobi peers for equivalent user levels, it is observed that OKEx presents very competitive rates in 2 of the 3 crypto assets.

Comparison of daily interest rates of margin.
The OKEx margin trading account operates similar to the Binance Insolate account. That is, there is an individual account or wallet for each pair that you wish to trade with leverage. For example: If you want to do margin trading on the BTC / USDT and ETH / USDT pairs with USDT in your account, you will need to make individual USDT deposits to each pair’s account.

Regarding the level of leverage, this can be modified. The maximum limit varies depending on the pair you are operating in, with 10x the maximum available.

Cryptocurrency derivatives
At OKEx you will find 3 different types of derivatives: futures, perpetual swaps and options. The way to trade with the first two is the same as with traditional trading and margin, but with a higher level of leverage of up to 125x.

In the case of options, you bet on the movement of the market. For example, in the BTCUSD pair you bet that BTC is going to go up or down. In options trading you only have 3 pairs to trade: BTCUSD, ETHUSD, EOSUSD. Due to the simplicity of the operations, you will not have graphical analysis tools.

Each of the derivatives markets has 2 options: basic and advanced, which you can use at your convenience. They are designed to meet the level of expertise of each user, novice or professional.

What are OKEx fees?
For trading fees OKEx uses the Maker / Taker fee model to promote order placement and liquidity. The maker is the one who creates the order and the taker who executes it. This model is adjusted according to the classification by trading volume that OKEx makes of its clients, in common users and VIPs .

Common users are in turn divided into levels according to the total amount of OKB tokens they have in all their OKEx accounts, and the commissions that apply to them are according to the type of trading they carry out.

Comparing OKEx’s Maker / Taker commissions with those of its competition, Binance and Huobi, for similar user levels, it is observed that OKEx’s Spot trading commissions are very competitive with those of its peers, although Binance’s option of 25 % discount when trading your BNB token puts you in a prominent position.

Comparison table of commissions for Spot trading.
VIP users do not need to have OKB but a monthly volume of transactions greater than 1,000 BTC, but their trading commissions are extraordinarily low, even negative (refund) for Maker VIP5-VIP7. They also enjoy other benefits like depositEXPRESS, custom withdrawal limits, fiat OTC gateway, alpha / beta tester opportunities, and a dedicated 1-to-1 account manager and technical support when trading.

Deposits and withdrawals at OKEx
OKEx allows you to manage your funds in an internal portfolio within the platform. The portfolio is subdivided by trading categories, such as spot and margin trading. The same happens with derivatives trading, where for each of the derivatives available in OKEx there is a different portfolio.

OKEx does not charge commission for deposits and withdrawals and these have nothing in particular. They work just like a traditional wallet or any other exchange in terms of how to deposit or withdraw. However, if there are details regarding its operation.

There are minimum deposit amounts. For bitcoin of 0.00005 BTC and for Ether of 0.01 ETH for each transaction.

Withdrawals will be blocked until you pass verification level 1.

Deposited funds require a minimum amount of confirmations and as many for withdrawals. For example, with Bitcoin, your funds are visible when they receive 1 confirmation and you can withdraw them when it reaches 3 confirmations.

You can deposit directly in the section you want, be it the spot market, margin, derivatives or loans. This differs from deposits on Binance, where you must first deposit to the main wallet and then transfer internally.

Other ways to make money at OKEx
P2P loans are an alternative way that OKEx offers you to earn interest on your cryptocurrencies (Earn) or borrow funds (P2P Loans). These are based on the model of loans with collateral or guarantee, in which the lender gives a crypto asset as a loan and the borrower must provide another cryptocurrency as collateral to be used in the event of non-payment.

DeFi and CeFi loans
OKEx divides its loans into two types, DeFi (decentralized) and CeFi (Centralized). DeFi loans are offered on top of the loan offer on external DeFi portals such as Compound or Maker, but with the advantage of being managed from your OKEx account.

CeFi centralized loans are internal. You will also find them as C2C and they are managed from the Earn option (you borrow) or from the P2P loan option (you borrow) in the Finance section.

Cryptocurrencies available for loans at OKEx
In the C2C loan market, the cryptocurrency options are limited to a total of 12 crypto assets, which are: BTC, USDT, ETH, OKB, LTC, BCH, EOS, BSV, FIL, XRP, LINK, TRX. In the case of external markets, it depends on the availability within the platforms themselves.

Interest rates
The interests are variable. In the case of Earn , you as the lender set the daily interest rate while in DeFi loans, the interest depends on the external supply.

Is OKEx safe?
OKEx recognizes that cold wallets are the safest mechanism for storing user funds, but since they handle large volumes of crypto assets entering and leaving the exchange, hot wallets are a must. 95% of the funds in OKEx are held in cold wallets and only 5% in hot wallets.

Operating hot wallets safely poses huge technical challenges that OKEx has overcome by developing semi-offline multi-signature technology that enables convenient, fast and secure crypto asset deposits and withdrawals while ensuring their safety.

Furthermore, all user asset deposit and withdrawal processes must be verified by multiple risk management mechanisms before being transmitted to the blockchain for confirmation.

The security of the user account is guaranteed by OKEx with a robust system. These tools include enabling two-factor authentication, verification code via SMS, anti-phishing code via email, and creating a second exclusive password to withdraw funds.

Pros and cons

Pros
More than 500 trading pairs.
Highly competitive trading commissions.
Wide variety of trading options for newbies and professionals.
Trading app for mobile and desktop, in addition to the browser.
Robust exchange and user account security system.
Very fluent website with friendly basic and advanced trading interfaces.
DeFi market product offering with internal management.
Various options to generate passive income.

Cons
Not having their own cryptocurrency trading service on the platform.
The P2P e-commerce market for cryptocurrencies does not have operators for Latin America.
Little information on how your loan market works.
Not available to residents of the US, Ecuador, or Bolivia in Latin America.
The academy and tutorials are in English only.
KYC verification required to be able to make withdrawals.

Conclusions
OKEx has a wide variety of trading options on its platform. Whether you are an advanced active trader or a one-time investor, you will find a solution on this platform.

In addition, the inclusion of other cryptocurrency services such as P2P buying and selling, granting or taking CeFI and Defi loans, the latter external but managed within the platform, are definitely the plus that supports the definition of a cryptoassets financial services suite .

OKEx seems to be a safe Exchange to use, since to date it has not presented hacks or seen the funds of its users compromised, beyond the recent suspension of withdrawals due to forced unavailability of one of its officials who manages the private keys of the wallets .

Not having an insurance policy on the funds on the platform could discourage some users from entering, but it can also be interpreted as an endorsement of the semi-offline multi-signature technology that they have developed. However, the recommendation to only store the assets that you will be trading imminently in an exchange wallet and the rest of your funds in an offline hardware wallet remains in effect.

In short, OKEx is one of the best exchanges in terms of liquidity, tradable assets, and functionalities. Additionally, trading commissions are highly competitive with their industry-leading peers