Document app downloads, hundreds of thousands of customers, and new in-app options mark the yr of restoration and drive OKX’s success.
With hundreds of thousands of latest customers and a formidable 122% year-over-year rise in app downloads, OKX’s 2024 has been a transformative yr characterised by resilience and innovation. The CEO of OKX, Star Xu, acknowledged, “Regardless of the challenges, 2024 stays a yr of focus, innovation, and resilience.”
The corporate highlighted main achievements, together with a rise of 991% world progress in OKX Pockets customers by December and a 20x improve in day by day buying and selling quantity on its decentralized trade. This enlargement underscores the crypto sector’s total revival, which the CEO referred to as “an vital turning level for the {industry}.”
Regardless of the continued success, OKX has encountered a number of challenges, particularly within the areas of platform safety and regulatory oversight. Following studies of safety flaws, OKX lately noticed big cash withdrawals, with shoppers taking out virtually $837 million in a single week.
You may additionally like: Refined deepfake AI hack nets over $2m in stolen funds from OKX person
Questions over the platform’s basic safety mechanism and tales of SIM swap assaults, during which hackers obtained entry to customers’ accounts, had been the catalysts for these withdrawals.
In contrast to decentralized exchanges, the place customers retain management over their trades and belongings, OKX which was established in 2017 is a centralized trade, which suggests it’s run by a single group. A extra streamlined and user-friendly expertise is made attainable by centralization, nevertheless it additionally implies that OKX itself shops and manages person funds and private knowledge. A single hack might undermine all the platform, impacting tons of and even hundreds of thousands of customers, and making centralized exchanges extra prone to assaults.
Decentralized exchanges, alternatively, divide authority amongst a number of contributors, which might present additional safety as a result of there isn’t a single central goal for an assault. The downside is that DEXs sometimes have extra intricate procedures and person interfaces.
For OKX, this focus of energy has turned out to be each a profit and a downside. Though it gives extra environment friendly providers on account of centralization, current safety breaches present that it additionally makes the platform a chief goal for hackers and locations the onus of person safety squarely on the platform.
You may additionally like: OKX Ventures formally declares funding in USUAL
To enhance the person expertise, OKX launched a streamlined “easy mode” in its app for intuitive buying and selling, enhanced cross-chain assist throughout 100+ blockchains, and added over 200 new options to its providers. “This yr, we’re working to optimize using the app and improve the seamless expertise of crypto belongings on OKX,” stated the CEO.
In 2024, OKX accelerated its world enlargement by establishing localized operations in Brazil, Singapore, and Australia. The corporate’s dedication to compliance and transparency was demonstrated by securing 4 vital regulatory licenses in key areas: Singapore, the UAE, the European Financial Space, and Australia.
With an industry-first Proof of Reserves software and near 500 compliance specialists, OKX continues to set the usual for shielding person confidence. “So far, greater than 2 million customers have used our Proof of Reserves verification software,” stated the CEO.
As OKX continues its enlargement into new worldwide markets, its rebranding and deal with world compliance spotlight the rising competitors amongst centralized exchanges. Rivals of OKX, resembling Binance, have additionally confronted regulatory challenges.
Nevertheless, regardless of ongoing regulatory scrutiny, OKX stays a serious participant within the area, persevering with to dominate as one of many largest exchanges on the earth. This intensifies the competitors for market share, with OKX aiming to strengthen its place and capitalize on its current enlargement initiatives.
Learn extra: OKX Ventures 2024 report: injected $100m in additional than 60 initiatives with AI and Bitcoin focus