Updated Rules checked 2026-10-13
Up to 2026-10-12, I found no major public incident of theft from OKX’s platform wallets by this site’s inclusion criteria. The two biggest items on its record have nothing to do with hackers: from 2020-10-16 to 11-26, OKX (then called OKEx) halted withdrawals for about 41 days because a private-key holder was cooperating with a police investigation; and on 2025-02-24, the company operating OKX pleaded guilty in the US, with a fine and forfeiture totaling more than USD 504 million.
OKX publishes proof of reserves every month; report no. 47 for September 2026 shows a BTC reserve ratio of 109% and USDT of 105%. Regular users pay 0.08% Maker and 0.1% Taker on spot, and 0.02% Maker and 0.05% Taker on futures, with no platform-token discount. What users in Taiwan should know: OKX is not on the anti-money laundering (AML) registration list of Taiwan’s Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC), and its New Taiwan dollar (TWD) C2C trading stopped on 2024-06-24.
This review gives no star rating. It puts the data on fees, rebates, reserves, security and regulatory records, restricted regions and products in one place, each with its source and date. The referral code and sign-up steps are in OKX referral code.
Key points: OKX’s VIP 0 spot fee is 0.08% Maker and 0.1% Taker, and futures are 0.02% Maker and 0.05% Taker; OKX states that OKB can’t be used to pay fees. Proof-of-reserves report no. 47 for September 2026 shows reserve ratios of 109% for BTC, 101% for ETH and 105% for USDT, and about 4.43% of the platform’s BTC is held with third-party custodians. I found no major public incident of theft from OKX’s platform wallets, but withdrawals were halted for about 41 days from 2020-10-16 to 2020-11-26. The restricted locations in OKX’s risk and compliance disclosure (2026-07-08 version) don’t include Taiwan; but OKX is not on the FSC’s AML registration list (the Securities and Futures Bureau’s 2026-09-29 list), and it stopped TWD C2C trading from 2024-06-24.
The data below was checked against official pages on 2026-10-13 (data check date) and is provided for reference.
What are OKX’s fees?
| Market (regular users) | Maker | Taker | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard spot pairs | 0.08% | 0.1% | Fee is deducted from the coin you buy |
| USDC-USDT, PYUSD-USDT | 0% | 0% | No rebate, and not counted toward 30-day volume |
| RLUSD-USDT, USDG-USDT | 0% | 0.05% | Not counted toward 30-day volume |
| Pairs with special rules | 0.1% | 0.15% | — |
| USDT-margined and coin-margined futures (perpetual and expiry) | 0.02% | 0.05% | Expiry futures charge an extra 0.01% at delivery |
| Options | 0.03% | 0.03% | Capped at 7% of the premium |
Source: the “regular user” tier on the OKX fee page (checked on 2026-10-11 and consistent with the rates recorded by this site’s plugin). OKX states that OKB can’t be used to offset trading fees and that holding it doesn’t affect your fee tier (OKX: how to reduce trading fees); if a position is liquidated, the fee is charged at the Taker rate of your current tier (OKX trading fee FAQ).
Futures fees are charged on position value and have no direct link to leverage: with 1,000 USDT of margin at 10x, the position is 10,000 USDT, so a market order to open and another to close cost 5 USDT each, 10 USDT in total; with Maker orders on both sides it’s 4 USDT. The higher the leverage, the more you pay in fees on the same margin, and if the price moves against you, the position may also be liquidated. VIP 1 requires USD 100,000 in assets, or 30-day volume of USD 1 million in spot or USD 5 million in futures, with no need to hold OKB; after the 2026-04-08 adjustment, VIP 1 futures fees are 0.016% / 0.045% and spot 0.0675% / 0.08% (OKX VIP and futures fee adjustment announcement).
Here is the same trader at three large exchanges: 200,000 USDT a month in USDT-margined futures and 20,000 USDT in spot, all at VIP 0 rates:
| Monthly fees (USDT) | Binance | Binance (BNB discount) | OKX | Bybit | Bybit (MNT discount) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Futures 200,000, all Taker | 100 | 90 | 100 | 110 | 99 |
| Spot 20,000, all Taker | 20 | 15 | 20 | 20 | 15 |
| Total (all Taker) | 120 | 105 | 120 | 130 | 114 |
| Total (all switched to Maker) | 60 | 51 | 56 | 60 | 51 |
Each figure is trading volume times the VIP 0 rate, for example 200,000 × 0.05% = 100 USDT and 200,000 × 0.055% = 110 USDT. Rate sources: Binance spot fee page, Binance futures fee explainer, OKX fee page, Bybit trading fee structure (checked on 2026-10-11). Platform-token discounts require holding BNB or MNT, and their price swings are your own risk; on Bybit, if your MNT isn’t enough to cover a whole fee, the entire fee is charged at the regular rate.
Without any platform token, OKX and Binance both come to 120 USDT, 10 USDT less than Bybit. Without a platform token and with every order placed as Maker, OKX’s 56 USDT is the lowest (Binance and Bybit with the BNB or MNT discount on come to 51 USDT), because OKX is the only one of the three whose VIP 0 spot Maker fee is lower than its Taker fee (0.08% versus 0.1%). Full rates are in OKX fees, you can run your own volume through the futures cost calculator, and the difference between Maker and Taker orders is explained in Maker vs Taker fees.
How much is the OKX referral rebate, and has it changed?
OKX pays the referral rebate directly into your account. OKX states that the share an invitee receives is set by the referral link, in a range of 0% to 20%, and you can check it in the app under the menu → User center → “My rewards”. The rebate is calculated on the net fees you actually pay, on both Maker and Taker orders (OKX affiliate FAQ, OKX affiliate program rules).
For accounts registered with this site’s referral code, the exchange’s current automatic fee rebate is 20%, on both spot and futures. Below is the history of this site’s referral rebate rate, which updates automatically whenever the rate changes:
- 20% (tracking started)
Rates sync with the exchange daily; every change is recorded automatically.
The OKX affiliate program rules list several cases with no rebate: assets traded without a fee (such as zero-fee stablecoin pairs), fees paid with rebate vouchers or futures trial funds, users on special fee rates, VIP 5 and VIP 6 users who have used up that month’s rebate cap, and VIP 7 and above. You can’t add a referral code once your account has been created. If you already have an account, you can submit a switch request, which is reviewed automatically under undisclosed conditions with 30 days required between requests, or, after 180 days of inactivity, be reassigned through a new affiliate’s link. Sign-up steps are in OKX referral code, the switching steps in switching your OKX referral code, and how to check who you’re bound to in how to check your referral code binding.
Does OKX have proof of reserves?
Yes. It’s published monthly and verified with zk-STARK, covers 22 coins, includes both customer and company assets, and lists third-party custody separately (OKX PoR page). The figures for report no. 47, September 2026 (data time on the page 2026-09-08 00:00, UTC+8):
| Item | Report no. 47 | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| BTC reserve ratio | 109% | Users 139,865 BTC, platform 153,151 BTC, a surplus of 13,286 BTC |
| ETH reserve ratio | 101% | — |
| USDT reserve ratio | 105% | — |
| USDC reserve ratio | 100% | Checked on 2026-10-11 |
| BTC held with third-party custodians | 6,792 BTC | About 4.43% of the platform’s BTC; has to be verified with the custodians |
| Wallet address verification | Yes | Addresses carry an “I am an OKX address” signature, which you can confirm with the open-source VerifyAddress tool |
The surplus of 13,286 BTC is the largest among the 8 exchanges on this site that publish BTC amounts; Binance’s is about 2,430.91 BTC. Watch the third-party custody share, though: OKX’s 4.43% is higher than Binance’s roughly 1.66%, and that portion can’t be checked on the blockchain by yourself. PoR reflects only the moment of the snapshot, and OKX itself states that tokens outside its scope and transactions after the snapshot are not included. The self-verification steps (zk-STARK Validator) and a comparison across exchanges are in exchange proof of reserves compared.
What security or withdrawal incidents has OKX had?
In chronological order, including only records from official announcements, major media and regulators:
- 2020-10-16 to 2020-11-26: OKEx suspended all digital asset withdrawals from 11:00 (Hong Kong time) on 10-16 because a private-key holder was cooperating with a police investigation and could not be reached (Decrypt). On 11-20 it announced withdrawals would resume before 11-27 (The Block), and they actually resumed on 11-26 (ForkLog), about 41 days in all.
- Compensation after reopening: OKX set aside 20% of its futures and perpetual fee revenue for the seven weeks from October 16 to December 4 as compensation rewards, and users with net assets above 10,000 USDT also received fee rebate vouchers worth 100 to 1,000 USDT (OKX compensation announcement).
- May 2024: OKX withdrew its application for a Hong Kong virtual asset trading platform license and stopped offering centralized trading services to Hong Kong residents from May 31 (The Block).
- 2024-06-24: TWD C2C trading ended for users in Taiwan (announced on 2024-06-07, OKX announcement on removing C2C trading in Taiwan).
- 2025-02-24: Aux Cayes FinTech, the company operating OKX, pleaded guilty in the US to one count of operating an unlicensed money transmitting business, with a USD 84.4 million fine plus USD 420.3 million in forfeiture, more than USD 504 million in total (US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York).
- 2025-06-28: Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission announced on 2025-05-29 that, from this date, it would block 5 unlicensed platforms including OKX, Bybit and XT (The Block).
- August 2025: the Philippine Securities and Exchange Commission named 10 unregistered platforms including OKX, and telecom operators then blocked them (Cointelegraph).
What stands out in OKX’s record is that no assets were lost; what users paid was 41 days without access to their money. That is the longest withdrawal halt in the records of the 13 exchanges on this site, far longer than the roughly 7.5 days after Bitget’s 2026 hack. While compiling this, I also found no separate user protection fund at OKX. Full records for 13 exchanges are in exchange safety records.
Which countries can’t use OKX?
The “Restricted Locations” in the OKX risk and compliance disclosure (updated 2026-07-08) are: Afghanistan, Canada, Cuba, Hong Kong, Iran, India, Japan, Malaysia, Nepal, North Korea, Syria, the Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine, parts of the United States (including all territories such as Puerto Rico and Guam), and Uzbekistan. The same page also lists partial service restrictions:
- Australia: futures and cefi-related services.
- United Kingdom: futures, cefi-related and P2P services.
- South Korea and Brazil: futures and P2P.
- The Bahamas: retail products; Eritrea: P2P; Russia: fiat payments.
Taiwan isn’t on the list. OKX is the only one of the 13 exchanges that restricts just “parts of the United States”; the other 12 don’t serve the US at all. Outside the terms, Thailand blocked OKX in 2025 and the Philippines named it in 2025, yet neither country is on OKX’s list. Restricted regions for 13 exchanges are compared in exchange restricted countries.
What products does OKX offer?
| Product | OKX data | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Spot | 421 spot coins trading (2026-10-13) | OKX spot API |
| Perpetual futures | 485 USDT perpetuals (2026-10-13); funding settles every 8 hours by default, some every 1, 2 or 4 hours, and on 2026-10-12, 44% of USDT perpetuals settled every 4 hours | OKX perpetuals API, perpetual funding fee rules |
| Funding rate cap | ±0.375% for BTC; hitting the cap or floor shortens the interval by one step (8→4→2→1 hours) | perpetual funding fee rules |
| Trading bots | 11 types: spot grid, futures grid, futures Martingale, smart arbitrage, spot Martingale, recurring buy, signal bot, iceberg, TWAP, smart portfolio, arbitrage order | OKX trading bots overview |
| Copy trading | Fees are the same as regular futures rates, with no other charges; profit share depends on the lead trader’s level, up to 30%, settled every Monday at 00:00 | OKX copy trading FAQ, lead trader profit-sharing rules |
| Earn | Simple Earn USDT flexible market rate 3.50%; OKX takes 15% of the earnings, leaving about 2.98% (2026-10-13); new users get an extra 10% on the first 500 USDT for 180 days | OKX Simple Earn |
| Other | Options (VIP 0 Maker and Taker 0.03%), Jumpstart, non-custodial Web3 wallet | What is the OKX Web3 wallet |
A few cost-related details. OKX’s English copy trading FAQ gives a profit share of 8% to 13%, which differs from the 30% maximum in the profit-sharing rules; go by what the copy trading page shows. Whether copy trading fees earn a referral rebate isn’t stated officially by OKX. The 15% cut on Earn is the only one of its kind stated in writing among the 13 exchanges; OKX states that the interest comes from lending to borrowing and margin users, and that redemptions may be temporarily limited when the pool is fully lent out. With the Web3 wallet you hold your own private keys, so if you lose your seed phrase, the assets can’t be recovered. Details are in copy trading costs, what is the funding rate and USDT flexible savings rates compared.
What should users in Taiwan know about OKX?
- Registration status: the list in the Securities and Futures Bureau’s section on businesses and persons providing virtual asset services, updated 2026-09-29, shows 11 businesses that have completed AML registration, and OKX is not on the FSC’s AML registration list. Explaining the FTX collapse on 2022-11-23, the FSC noted that offshore trading platforms are not covered by the dispute-handling mechanisms of the Securities and Futures Investors Protection Center or the Financial Ombudsman Institution (FSC statement); if your account is frozen or withdrawals are restricted, you can only follow the platform’s terms.
- TWD deposits and withdrawals: OKX announced on 2024-06-07 that from 2024-06-24, users in Taiwan could no longer buy or sell with TWD on C2C; C2C in other currencies and crypto deposits and withdrawals were not affected (OKX announcement). This site also found no TWD bank deposit channel. The usual route is to buy USDT with TWD on a domestic platform (such as MAX or BitoPro) and transfer it to OKX, then do the reverse to cash out.
- USDT transfer networks: OKX doesn’t offer BEP20 for USDT withdrawals. On 2026-10-12 the cheapest route to MAX was Aptos (0.0012 USDT). For BitoPro, the only shared networks not labeled USDT0 were ERC20 (0.55 USDT) and TRC20 (1.5 USDT); Polygon, labeled USDT0, cost 0.012 USDT, so compare the contract address on BitoPro’s deposit page before using it (OKX withdrawal fee page). To move funds from MAX into OKX, you can use Avalanche C-Chain, with a withdrawal fee of 0 on the MAX side. Full figures are in USDT withdrawal fees compared.
- Withdrawal fees change: OKX’s USDT fee over ERC20 was 0.35 USDT on 2026-10-11 and 0.55 USDT the next day, 2026-10-12. Before you press withdraw, go by the amount shown on the withdrawal page.
- Identity verification: without completing identity verification, you can’t deposit or withdraw crypto or trade on C2C; after verification, the 24-hour withdrawal limit depends on your fee tier, and each ID document can be registered to only one account (OKX identity verification FAQ).
- Official channels: the official domain is okx.com. When I checked, the OKX app was available on Taiwan’s App Store, with OKX Inc. as the developer, and the website and help center are available in Traditional Chinese; on Google Play the developer is OKX INC. Phone calls, emails, URLs or social media accounts claiming to be OKX can be checked with OKX official channel verification. Impersonation tactics are covered in crypto exchange scam types.
- Possible changes ahead: the FSC’s plan of 2026-08-04 says the Travel Rule is expected to extend to transfers between domestic and offshore providers by the end of 2027 (FSC press release), so the process for moving coins from a domestic platform to an offshore exchange may change.
Who is OKX a good fit for?
- Spot buyers who usually place Maker orders: VIP 0 spot Maker is 0.08%, lower than the 0.1% at Binance and Bybit without holding any platform token.
- People who want trading bots: OKX lists 11 bot types, and the signal bot can place orders automatically from TradingView signals.
- People who already have an account and may want to change referrer later: OKX accepts switch requests, whereas Binance doesn’t allow a change once bound, and on Bybit, once the 14-day window to add a code has passed, the only option is 180 days of inactivity.
- People who often swap between stablecoins: USDC-USDT and PYUSD-USDT currently have zero fees, though they earn no rebate and don’t count toward volume.
- Less suitable for: people used to moving USDT over BEP20 (OKX has no BEP20), people who want to pay fees with a platform token at a discount, and people who often trade futures on lesser-known coins (485 USDT perpetuals versus 795 at Bybit).
Frequently asked questions
Is OKX safe?
No exchange can be called completely safe. Here is OKX’s record: by this site’s inclusion criteria, I found no major public incident of theft from its platform wallets (as of 2026-10-12), but withdrawals were halted for about 41 days in 2020, and on 2025-02-24 the company operating OKX pleaded guilty in the US, with a fine and forfeiture totaling more than USD 504 million. The September 2026 proof of reserves shows a BTC reserve ratio of 109% and USDT of 105%.
Is OKX a scam?
OKX itself is not a scam; it is an exchange in actual operation: the official site is okx.com, and its terms of service, updated 2026-09-17, list the operating entity for each region. Users in Taiwan and other regions not specifically listed contract with Aux Cayes FinTech Co. Ltd. (OKX terms of service). What people online call a “OKX scam” is usually a fake website, fake app, fake customer support or fake investment group using OKX’s name. The usual demands are to add someone on LINE, to transfer USDT to a “platform” outside the exchange, or to pay an “unfreezing fee” or “security deposit” before you can withdraw. OKX states that it does not contact users through phone calls, text messages or external platforms, and you can check a suspicious account with OKX official channel verification. Not being a scam doesn’t mean there’s no risk: OKX is not on the FSC’s AML registration list, and any dispute can only be handled under the platform’s terms. Impersonation tactics are covered in crypto exchange scam types, and rebate-related scams in rebate scam warning signs.
Has OKX been hacked?
By this site’s inclusion criteria, I found no major public incident of theft from OKX’s platform wallets (as of 2026-10-12). The bigger event was the roughly 41-day withdrawal halt from 2020-10-16 to 11-26, caused by a private-key holder cooperating with a police investigation, not a hack. After withdrawals reopened, OKX set aside 20% of seven weeks of futures and perpetual fee revenue as compensation rewards.
Which country is OKX based in?
The official and regulatory sources cited on this site don’t state the country where OKX is headquartered, so this answer lists only what can be confirmed: the OKX operating company that pleaded guilty in the US in 2025 is Aux Cayes FinTech, and the developer of the OKX app on Taiwan’s App Store is OKX Inc. In 2024 OKX withdrew its Hong Kong license application and stopped offering centralized trading services to Hong Kong residents from May 31.
Could OKX collapse?
No data can predict whether an exchange will go under; all you can look at are the public figures. OKX publishes proof of reserves every month, and in September 2026 its BTC, ETH and USDT reserve ratios were all above 100%. But PoR reflects only the moment of the snapshot, doesn’t show the company’s own liabilities, and about 4.43% of its BTC is held with third-party custodians. If something went wrong at the platform, Taiwan’s Securities and Futures Investors Protection Center and Financial Ombudsman Institution couldn’t help, so it isn’t advisable to keep all the assets you aren’t actively trading on a single exchange.
Can I use OKX in Taiwan?
The restricted locations in OKX’s risk and compliance disclosure (2026-07-08 version) don’t include Taiwan, and the app is available on Taiwan’s App Store. But OKX is not on the FSC’s AML registration list (the Securities and Futures Bureau’s 2026-09-29 list), so in a dispute, Taiwan’s Securities and Futures Investors Protection Center and Financial Ombudsman Institution don’t apply. Since 2024-06-24, users in Taiwan can no longer buy or sell with TWD on C2C.
Can I withdraw from OKX to a bank account in Taiwan?
This site found no channel for withdrawing from OKX directly to a bank in Taiwan, and TWD C2C ended on 2024-06-24. The usual route is to transfer USDT to a domestic platform (such as MAX or BitoPro), sell it for TWD and withdraw. OKX has no BEP20; to send to MAX you can use Aptos (0.0012 USDT on 2026-10-12).
Can I use OKB to pay OKX fees at a discount?
No. OKX states that OKB can’t be used to offset trading fees, and holding OKB doesn’t affect your fee tier; VIP tiers depend only on assets and 30-day volume. Because there’s no platform-token discount, the rebate is calculated directly on the net fees you actually pay.
The referral code and sign-up steps are in OKX referral code, fee details in OKX fees, and the switching rules in switching your OKX referral code. For comparisons with other exchanges, see Binance vs OKX, OKX vs Bybit, Bitget vs OKX and OKX vs MEXC; other reviews in this series include the Binance review and the Bybit review. Each exchange’s actual fees after rebates are in actual fees after referral rebates, and every exchange’s referral code is in the exchange referral code overview.