Venues / OKX

Is OKX legit and safe?

The checklist

Custody: who holds your money

Balances on the exchange are held by OKX. OKX publishes monthly Proof of Reserves reports (zk-STARK based) and says it keeps a 1:1 reserve ratio. Its self-custody wallet and DEX aggregator are separate products (see the OKX Wallet and OKX DEX sheets).

Who backs OKX

• Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE parent) (2026-03) source

Incidents

• 2025-02-24: US guilty plea and more than $504M in penalties. Aux Cayes Fintech Co. Ltd (d/b/a OKX), the Seychelles entity behind the global platform, pleaded guilty in the Southern District of New York to one count of operating an unlicensed money transmitting business. It agreed to forfeit $420.3M and pay a fine of about $84.4M, and to keep an external compliance consultant through February 2027. Prosecutors said it served US customers despite a policy barring them, and was used for more than $5B of suspicious transactions and criminal proceeds. source
• 2020-10-16: Five-week crypto withdrawal suspension. OKEx halted all crypto withdrawals on 2020-10-16, saying a private key holder was out of contact while cooperating with a police investigation. On 2020-11-19 it said withdrawals would resume on or before 2020-11-27. source

Real downsides

• The global operator pleaded guilty in February 2025 to running an unlicensed money transmitting business and paid more than $504M.
• OKX US charges regular users 0.20% maker and 0.35% taker, its fee page lists spot pairs only, and it is not available in New York.
• Halted all crypto withdrawals for about five weeks in October-November 2020.
• Custodial exchange with mandatory identity verification; fees and products vary by region.

Can you use it where you live?

US: the global OKX platform lists 'certain jurisdictions within the United States', including all US territories, as restricted locations. US residents are served by OKX Inc., a FinCEN-registered money services business (NMLS #1767779). Its U.S. Licenses page (updated 2026-09-15) says it does not serve residents of New York, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands or the U.S. Virgin Islands. It lists state licences for token-to-token and USD-to-token services, including Texas. The OKX US fee page lists spot pairs only. UK: OKX's risk disclosure says it may restrict derivatives, cefi and P2P services there. EEA: served by OKX Europe Limited (Malta), which says it holds a MiCA licence; fees are priced in EUR. The global restricted list also includes Canada, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Malaysia, Afghanistan, Cuba, Iran, Nepal, North Korea, Syria, Uzbekistan, and Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk. (source)

We report what the venue's own terms say. Don't use a VPN to get around restrictions; venues can freeze accounts that do.

How to use OKX without getting scammed

• Only open www.okx.com — fake lookalike sites and "support" DMs are the most common way people lose funds on any trading venue.
• Never share a seed phrase or private key. No real support agent will ask for one.
• A referral code only changes your fee and who gets a share of it. It never needs your keys.
• Treat every new memecoin as able to go to zero. A legit venue does not make the coins on it safe.

Comparing options? See the full OKX sheet or Binance, Bybit, Kraken.