The LSE Directory / CFD and forex brokers
OKX is a global cryptocurrency exchange and Web3 technology company. Its core exchange offers spot, margin, perpetual swap, expiry futures and options trading across several hundred digital assets, alongside staking, lending, a peer to peer fiat on ramp and an NFT marketplace. It also runs OKX Wallet, a self custody, multi chain wallet with a built in decentralised exchange aggregator that gives users direct access to DeFi protocols without leaving the app. The company states on its own site that it serves millions of users across more than 180 countries and regions, with REST, WebSocket and FIX APIs supporting both retail and institutional order flow. Within the crypto exchange category, OKX's business is weighted heavily toward derivatives rather than spot trading. It held roughly 15 percent average market share of global crypto derivatives volume in the first quarter of 2026, the largest share after Binance's, and its monthly derivatives volume briefly overtook Binance's at 1.3 trillion dollars in September 2025, according to Bloomberg. Unlike exchanges that rely solely on third party blockchains, OKX operates its own settlement layer, X Layer, a zkEVM built with Polygon's Chain Development Kit that went live on Ethereum mainnet in April 2024 and now processes roughly 5,000 transactions per second after an August 2025 upgrade; OKX has been migrating its older OKTChain network onto it. The exchange has also published monthly proof of reserves, verified with zk-STARK cryptographic proofs, every month since November 2022, one of the longer continuous reserve disclosure records among major exchanges. OKX traces its roots to Okcoin, a Chinese exchange founded by Star Xu in 2013; the OKEx exchange launched internationally out of Hong Kong in 2017 and was rebranded OKX in January 2022. Xu remains founder and CEO; Hong Fang has served as president since 2023. The global exchange platform is operated by Aux Cayes FinTech Co. Ltd., a Seychelles incorporated entity licensed there as a Virtual Asset Service Provider. In February 2025, Aux Cayes FinTech pleaded guilty in the US Southern District of New York to operating an unlicensed money transmitting business, having served US customers on its unregistered global platform from 2018 through early 2024 for transactions exceeding one trillion dollars; it agreed to pay more than 500 million dollars in combined penalties and forfeiture. OKX separately holds a MiCA Crypto Asset Service Provider licence from Malta's Financial Services Authority, effective since January 2025 and covering all 30 EEA states, and a VASP licence from Dubai's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority for its Middle East regional headquarters. In April 2025 the company relocated its global headquarters to San Jose, California, re-establishing a formal US presence. In March 2026, Intercontinental Exchange, the NYSE's publicly traded parent, took a minority stake in OKX, reportedly around 200 million dollars for under 1 percent of the company, at a 25 billion dollar valuation, and took a board seat. The deal pairs ICE's licensing of OKX's spot crypto pricing for new US regulated futures contracts with planned OKX user access to ICE's US futures markets and NYSE tokenised equities, targeted for the second half of 2026 subject to regulatory approval. OKX has said publicly it will not pursue an IPO until it can deliver returns to its investors.
