2025: Building Steadfast Toward Financial Freedom

Star

— A Year-End Letter from Star, Founder and CEO of OKX, to Our Global Users

"Financial freedom" is often misunderstood. It does not mean the absence of rules, but rather having the right to choose within a framework of rules—and when the system is truly put to the test, it remains reliable and effective.

This is precisely what we focused on throughout 2025.

First, I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to our customers, partners, and regulators worldwide. A secure and healthy crypto ecosystem is never built by any single party alone. Only when responsibility and collaboration are viewed as integral parts of an open system—rather than obstacles to its operation—can open systems truly thrive and endure.

In 2025, OKX achieved meaningful growth while continuously raising the industry's core standards for reliability, transparency, security, and accessibility. As we journey toward the future, the following areas are of paramount importance to me and my team:

Reliability: The Foundation of Financial Freedom

In 2025, repeated market turbulence exposed failures in certain systems and control mechanisms. Extreme price volatility, cascading mass liquidations, and concentrated derivatives expirations posed significant challenges to global trading infrastructure.

Late August: A concentrated derivatives expiration event, combined with high market volatility, caused service interruptions, order delays, and brief outages at several major platforms.

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

I am proud to announce: During both episodes, OKX operated seamlessly throughout. Trading, deposits, withdrawals, and risk management systems experienced no interruptions. On October 11, our system processing capacity reached an all-time high—handling a record 1.72 million trades per second while maintaining order latency of just 20 microseconds.

This reliability is the foundation upon which OKX was built. The infrastructure we have constructed consistently demonstrates its industry-leading position—not as a slogan, but as a result validated through countless extreme market conditions over the years.

Security, Market Integrity, and User Protection

We continue to increase our investment in system security, anti-fraud, and market surveillance. This includes: proactively combating large-scale fraud schemes (such as "pig butchering" scams); maintaining long-term cooperation with law enforcement agencies in multiple jurisdictions; and taking decisive action to delist and restrict accounts engaged in behavior that harms user interests.

These efforts have also received industry recognition. For example, blockchain investigator ZachXBT and leading crypto analytics firm Chainalysis have both cited our collaborative achievements on multiple occasions. Chainalysis CEO Jonathan Levin specifically mentioned the collaborative efforts of OKX, Chainalysis, Tether, and law enforcement in combating fraud during his testimony before the U.S. Senate Banking Committee in August. Open markets can only remain truly open when they actively remove "toxic elements."

Furthermore, hacking incidents continue to occur in the industry. This year, two major platforms were attacked, exposing billions of dollars in user assets to risk. For this reason, my team and I have long adhered to a principle: safety first. We do not rely on third-party technology and insist on native, self-developed solutions. This alone significantly reduces the risk of attacks. 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 the foundation of long-term trust.

Asset Transparency: Verifiable Anytime, 100% Reserves

Throughout 2025, we have maintained a 3%–5% surplus in assets under management, ensuring that user assets are fully backed at all times.

We have never ceased publishing monthly Proof of Reserves (PoR) reports:

• Beginning of year: Major assets exceeded $24 billion

• End of year: This figure grew to over $31.5 billion

• Reserve ratios: BTC, ETH, USDT, and USDC reserve ratios consistently remained above 100%

These reports are independently reviewed by third-party security and audit firms such as Hacken, and made available for public verification through Merkle Tree proof mechanisms.

Our Proof of Reserves mechanism is regarded by multiple industry analytics firms and media outlets as one of the most stable and transparent practices in the industry. Transparency should not be built on slogans, but on repeatable, verifiable facts.

Self-Custody: A Right Within Reach

We continue to expand self-custody capabilities, introducing new solutions including Passkey authentication for our wallet products.

This significantly reduces reliance on traditional passwords and single points of failure, enabling a broader range of users to securely and conveniently control their own assets.

Truly open financial systems must allow users to choose their own asset custody method: some prefer regulated platforms, some choose institutional-grade custody, and others insist on complete self-custody. Freedom only truly exists when these choices are real and readily available.

Institutional Trust and Public Recognition

We deepened our partnerships with global financial institutions such as Standard Chartered and DBS. Our progress in custody arrangements and fiat integration has received extensive coverage from mainstream media including Bloomberg and CoinDesk. These partnerships reflect market confidence in OKX—whether in governance structure, asset segregation, or risk management capabilities. Without trust from both users and institutions, open financial systems cannot truly scale. These collaborations build critical bridges between the two.

Product-Driven Choice: Simplifying Complexity

In 2025, we launched multiple products aimed at expanding access and reducing complexity. These include:

• New Interface Design**: **Significantly improved usability and lowered barriers to entry;

• OKX Pay**: **Focused on real-world applications and payments, rather than pure speculation;

• CeDeFi Innovation: Combining on-chain access with centralized risk control, with initial product solutions supporting Solana and Base trading;

• Regulatory Expansion: Deepening presence in the US and Europe, while expanding derivatives offerings in regulated jurisdictions such as the UAE and Australia.

In Brazil, the launch of OKX Pay made us the most downloaded crypto application in December.

Vision Behind the Scale

Our partnerships with the McLaren F1 Team and Manchester City Football Club continue to expand OKX's global influence. These collaborations, accompanied by two major championships won by the team and club, generated billions of brand impressions, introducing us to more people worldwide.

As we entered new regulated markets, OKX trading platform global volume grew 16% in 2025, DEX volume surged approximately 262%, and daily active wallet users increased over 100% year-over-year.

By year-end, our global user base surpassed 120 million. While widely reported, we view this milestone more as a responsibility than a destination.

Scale only matters when it is supported by systems, risk controls, and long-term vision.

What Freedom Looks Like

We do not frequently discuss "freedom," because it is easy to claim but difficult to achieve. In practice, freedom manifests as:

• Systems that remain stable under extreme pressure;

• Assets that can be verified, not merely promised;

• Markets that actively remove abuse rather than tolerating it;

• Self-custody solutions that are truly available to real users;

• Open networks connected to the global financial system, not isolated from it.

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

This is my commitment to every customer, and to the team building the future together. Let us step into 2026 with strength and responsibility.

Disclaimer

This article may contain content related to products not available in your region. This article is intended to provide general information only, and we assume no responsibility for any factual errors or omissions. The views expressed are solely those of the author and do not represent the views of OKX. This article is not intended to provide any advice, including but not limited to: (i) investment advice or investment recommendations; (ii) an offer or solicitation to buy, sell, or hold digital assets; or (iii) financial, accounting, legal, or tax advice. Holding digital assets (including stablecoins) involves high risk, may fluctuate significantly, and could become worthless. You should carefully consider whether trading or holding digital assets is suitable for you based on your financial situation. For questions regarding your specific circumstances, please consult your legal/tax/investment professionals. Information appearing in this article (including market data and statistics, if any) is provided for general reference only. Although we have exercised all reasonable care in preparing this data and these charts, we assume no responsibility for any factual errors or omissions expressed herein. © 2025 OKX. This article may be reproduced or distributed in its entirety, or excerpts of 100 words or less may be used, provided such use is non-commercial. Any reproduction or distribution of the entire article must also prominently state: "Copyright © 2025 OKX, used with permission." Permitted excerpts must cite the article title and include attribution, such as "Article Title, [Author Name (if applicable)], © 2025 OKX." Some content may be generated or assisted by artificial intelligence (AI) tools. Derivative works or other uses of this article are not permitted.

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