OKX Star's Year-End Message to Global Users: Steady Progress Leads to Financial Freedom

"Financial freedom" is often misunderstood. It does not mean the absence of rules, but rather the right to choose even when rules exist—and that the system remains reliable and effective when truly tested.

This is exactly the direction we have been focusing on in 2025.

First, I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to our customers, partners, and regulatory bodies worldwide. A secure and healthy crypto ecosystem is never the result of any single party building it alone. Only when responsibility and collaboration are seen as part of an open system, rather than as limitations that hinder its operation, can an open system truly thrive and go far.

In 2025, OKX achieved valuable growth, thereby continuously raising the bar for core industry standards in reliability, transparency, security, and accessibility. On our journey into the future, the following areas are crucial to me and my team:

Reliability: The First Prerequisite for "Financial Freedom"

The repeated market volatility in 2025 largely exposed the failures of some systems and control mechanisms. Dramatic market fluctuations, chain reactions of large-scale liquidations, and concentrated expiration of derivatives posed significant challenges to global trading infrastructure.

Late August: A cluster of derivatives maturities coupled with high market volatility led to service disruptions, order delays, and temporary shutdowns on several major platforms.

October: A rapid market sell-off triggered more than $19 billion in liquidations within 24 hours (data from CoinGlass and The Block).

I can proudly announce that OKX operated stably throughout both market movements. Trading, deposits, withdrawals, and risk control systems remained uninterrupted. On October 11th, our system reached an all-time high in processing capacity—handling a record 1.72 million transactions per second while maintaining an order latency of only 20 microseconds.

This reliability is the foundation that OKX has built since its inception. The infrastructure we have built continues to prove its leading position in the industry. This is not just a slogan, but a result that has been proven over the years through cycles and countless extreme market conditions.

Safety, Market Integrity and User Protection

We continue to increase our investment in system security, anti-fraud, and market monitoring. This includes: proactively combating large-scale fraud activities (such as "pig butchering scams"); maintaining long-term cooperation with law enforcement agencies in multiple regions; and taking decisive measures such as app removal and restriction of rights against behaviors that harm user interests.

These efforts have also been recognized by the industry. For example, blockchain investigator ZachXBT and well-known crypto analytics firm Chainalysis have repeatedly mentioned our collaborative achievements. Chainalysis CEO Jonathan Levin, during a hearing before the U.S. Senate Banking Committee in August, specifically mentioned the collaborative experience of OKX, Chainalysis, Tether, and law enforcement in combating fraud.

An open market can only truly remain open if it actively eradicates its "toxic elements".

Furthermore, hacker attacks continue to occur within the industry. This year, two more large platforms were attacked, exposing billions of dollars in user assets to risk. For this reason, my team and I have consistently adhered to one principle for many years: security first. We do not rely on third-party technologies and always insist on developing our own native solutions. This alone greatly reduces the risk of being attacked.

At the same time, we continue to invest in user education. Content such as "The Mild Mild West" raises public awareness, helping more people understand that in financial markets, governance, rules, and enforcement are not obstacles to innovation, but rather safeguards the foundation of long-term trust.

Asset transparency: verifiable at any time, 100% reserves

Throughout 2025, we will maintain a 3%–5% surplus in assets under management to ensure that user assets are fully supported at all times.

We have consistently published monthly Proof of Reserves (PoR) reports:

• At the beginning of the year: Major assets exceeded US$24 billion.
• By the end of the year: the figure had grown to over $31.5 billion.
• Reserve ratio: The reserve ratios of BTC, ETH, USDT, and USDC have consistently been above 100%.

These reports were independently reviewed by third-party security and auditing firms such as Hacken and made publicly available for verification through the Merkle Tree proof mechanism.

Our reserve verification mechanism is regarded by many industry analysis institutions and media as one of the most stable and transparent practices in the industry.

Transparency should not be built on slogans, but on repeatable and verifiable facts.

Self-management: A Right Within Reach

We continue to expand our self-custody capabilities and have introduced new solutions, including Passkey authentication, around our wallet products.

This not only significantly reduces reliance on traditional passwords and single points of failure, but also allows a wider range of users to securely and conveniently take control of their assets.

A truly open financial system must allow users to choose their own asset custody method: some prefer regulated platforms, some choose institutional custody, and some insist on full self-custody.

Freedom is only truly established when these choices are real and available.

Institutional Trust and Public Recognition

We have deepened our partnerships with global financial institutions such as Standard Chartered and DBS . Our progress in custody arrangements and fiat currency integration has received widespread attention from mainstream media outlets such as Bloomberg and CoinDesk.

These collaborations reflect the market's confidence in OKX—whether in terms of governance structure, asset custody segregation, or risk management capabilities.

Without trust between users and institutions, an open financial system cannot truly scale. These collaborations serve as crucial bridges between the two.

Product-Driven Choice: Simplifying Complexity

In 2025, we launched several products designed to broaden accessibility and reduce complexity. These include:

• New interface design : Significantly improves usability and lowers the barrier to entry.
• OKX Pay : Focuses on real-world applications and payments, rather than pure speculation;
• CeDeFi Innovation : Combining on-chain access with centralized risk control, the first product solutions to support Solana and Base transactions;
• Compliance Expansion: Deepening its presence in the US and Europe, and expanding its derivatives business in regulated regions such as the UAE and Australia .

In Brazil, the launch of OKX Pay made us the most downloaded encrypted app in the country in December.

Vision behind scale

Our partnerships with the McLaren F1 team and Manchester City Football Club continue to expand OKX's global reach. These collaborations, coupled with the billions of brand exposures generated by the team's and club's victories in two major championships, have increased our brand awareness to a wider audience.

With the entry into new regulated markets, OKX's global trading volume grew by 16% in 2025, DEX trading volume surged by approximately 262%, and the number of daily active wallets increased by over 100% year-on-year.

By the end of the year, we had surpassed 120 million users worldwide. While this milestone has been widely reported, we see it more as a responsibility than an end point.

Only "scale" supported by systems, risk control, and a long-term vision is meaningful.

What does freedom look like?

We don't talk about "freedom" often because it's easy to proclaim but difficult to achieve. In practice, freedom manifests itself as:

• A system that remains stable under extreme pressure;
• Assets that can be verified, not just promised;
• Proactively eliminate markets that abuse behavior, rather than condone it;
• Provide truly usable self-hosted solutions for real users;
• An open network connected to the global financial system, rather than isolated from itself.

Everything we build in 2025—from system stability and reserve transparency to wallets, CeDeFi, and regulatory compliance—is designed to expand financial access without sacrificing trust.

This is my promise to every client, and to the team that builds the future together. Let us step into 2026 with strength and a sense of responsibility.