Letter from the CEO – OKEx Blog
Dear OKEx users,
Time flies and we have spent another wonderful year together in the blockchain world.
This has been an extraordinary year — the cryptocurrency market, if not only Bitcoin, underwent a roller-coaster growth. The internet giant Facebook announced its own cryptocurrency project Libra, inspiring us how the power of blockchain technology could change the legacy financial system. Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) rolled out Bakkt, arguably the biggest move by a mainstream international financial institution into the cryptocurrency sphere. Major countries, including China and the EU, are embracing blockchain and planning to issue their own digital currencies.
Where will the train of blockchain technology head to in the future? What role should OKEx play in the wave of blockchain development? What are the best answers we can give to the questions we come across in innovation? I have been pondering these questions. However, the time doesn’t wait and not allow us to just keep dreaming. Only when the team becomes both dare thinkers and dare-doers, we will be able to find the best answers.
Facts have proved that the answer we gave to users and this era is still encouraging in 2019.
In 2019, IEO (initial exchange offering) took the place of ICO (initial coin offering) and was growing at full speed. In view of the demand, we launched our innovative IEO platform, OKEx Jumpstart to connect high-potential projects to our users worldwide. OKEx Jumpstart is not just any other IEO platform on the market, we act as a guarantor and conduct due diligence check on the projects, so that community members can buy into the tokens of these start-ups at ease. Since its launch, the performance of projects on OKEx Jumpstart has consistently improved, with an average maximum yield of 632.73%. We have helped a number of well-known projects to jump-start in the crypto space, including Blockcloud, Wirex, and En-Tan-Mo, to name a few. In 2020 when ICO and IEO are consolidating, it is our responsibility to look for truly quality projects for our users.
Our product suite expanded drastically in 2019. Whereas we offered only USD-margined futures in 2018, our derivatives products now span from USD-margined futures and perpetual swap, USDT- margined futures and perpetual contract, as well as options. What does that mean to our users? It means that, with a comprehensive product suite and refined product specifications, our users are empowered with a variety of instruments to cater to their various investment and hedging needs. What’s more, in order to facilitate traders to formula their strategies in a more well-informed way, we also optimized our existing products in different degrees and introduced a range of tools such as the Derivatives Big Data.
We’ve also launched the long-awaited OKEx Options in 2019. Developed from the ground up, OKEx Options represents a complete upgrade to the platform’s trading architecture, backed by a faster, more stable and robust infrastructure. What’s more, we also enable traders to write and sell options contracts, opening up more investing and hedging options for our users, which is the first of its kind in the crypto market. With this addition, OKEx is now the first crypto exchange to offer a wide range of products, including C2C, spot, futures, perpetual swap, and options trading under the same roof.
Technology-wise, last year we rolled out hundreds of upgrades which effectively ensures our trading system and market indices to endure the most volatile days. I still remember on May 17 when the flash crash incident of BitMEX futures took place, our futures market was able to withstand the industry-wide quake, which was then highly appreciated by our users. In fact, these are thanks to the endeavor of our R&D team. The recently announced Lightning 2.0 trading system has taken our order processing speed to the world’s top level. Having made such achievements, our R&D mates are heroes of OKEx.
As an exchange, our primary concern remains security, namely asset security, technology security, and system security. Security incidents are not uncommon in the cryptocurrency market and we must put security as our top priority. Last year, we built a safety system that covers all aspects of risks. Over the course of 2019, the functionality of OKEx Wallet were upgraded many times. The company and I personally also donate to the insurance fund for the perpetual swap for several times. Our team of security engineers has built up an all-rounded guard against both predictable and unpredictable risks.
The increase in customer satisfaction is also our pride in 2019. Last year, our customer support team received 1,039,707 user inquiries with 97.84% satisfaction rate, which is a significant improvement compared to that of last year. Here I would like to share with you a real case: a user omitted 37.6 BCH and 3 BTC and the identity information was inconsistent with the personal information, besides he only remembered the registered phone number. Due to our strict privacy protection system, it is difficult for our customer support staff to confirm the user’s information. Then our customer support team thought it over and came up with a stupid-sounding idea — asking the customer to look for the emails from OKEx in 2015 and 2016 to confirm the ownership of the assets. Then the team went through thousands of OKEx wallets and eventually recovered the client’s assets.
After hearing this story, I became more aware of the value of customer service and hard-won satisfaction. And even one minor aspect can make a great impact for the company.
In the past year, our market scale has also been expanding steadily, with people from more and more countries and regions being able to access our products and services. In addition, in 2019, a number of international media and organizations gave OKEx more than 30 awards. I am very excited to see the global influence of our brand is increasing day by day. Our team is also confident in 2020 to realize the goal of being the world’s largest, most comprehensive crypto exchange with the best user experience.
In addition, OKB’s economic model and ecosystem development are also approaching maturity. The development of the platform and the promotion of the token have brought OKB holders greater value and with the increased number of OKB application scenarios and trading channels. Be that as it may, we believe that this is just the beginning of the OKB economy.
Here at the start of 2020, on behalf of all members of OKEx, I wish you a happy New Year! Thank you for your continued support and for encouraging us to innovate and move forward. In the coming year, I can foresee that blockchain technology will undergo more development, and the digital assets will be known and accepted by more people. My team and I are here to promise you that we will strive for a better OKEx and continue to innovate in terms of products and technology, giving you the best services and users experience in the market.
May you have a wonderful year ahead!
Jay Hao
CEO of OKEx
Published at Tue, 07 Jan 2020 12:59:53 +0000
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