OKCoin Review

The OKCoin trading platform has a long tradition of providing users with essential crypto trading services, enterprise-level features, and a few additional options that make it a solid choice for the average crypto enthusiast.

Our OKCoin review covers every aspect of the exchange and will help you make an informed decision on whether to use the platform in your daily crypto operations.

Pros & Cons of OKCoin

Pros

• Available in most parts of the world
• Regulated by top institutions such as the US Financial Crime Enforcement Network (FinCEN)
• Instant and pro trading options
• Supports more than 100 of the top crypto projects 
• OTC desk for large transactions
• Reasonable fees
• Numerous crypto services for enterprise-level clients

Cons

• No crypto derivatives or futures trading options
• Doesn’t have an NFT section
• No possibilities for staking crypto

About OKCoin

The crypto market is very turbulent, and crypto exchanges come and go, but OKCoin is among those reputable platforms that have been present since the early 2010s on the market. OKCoin is a Chinese crypto exchange available in nearly all parts of the world thanks to its multiple regulatory licenses, which make it a trustworthy choice for traders. 

In terms of market position, OKCoin is firmly positioned somewhere between the 50th and 60th position, according to CoinMarketCap, which is still great, considering there are over 500 active crypto exchanges.

The exchange itself focuses on traditional trading services, which translates to instant trading and spot trading. OKCoin doesn’t deal with newly launched micro-cap projects. Instead, the platform supports a carefully curated selection of top crypto projects with high market demand. 

The platform’s design is very clean, and users can shift between the Buy and Trade features in just one click. The first section is made distinctively for crypto newcomers who wish to instantly buy or sell assets, while the latter allows advanced users to set their asset prices and order types manually.

Besides crypto trading, OKCoin has numerous services available for large-scale investors and enterprise clients, such as the over-the-counter (OTC) trading desk, where users can directly broker the price and fee for huge trades. 

Furthermore, enterprise clients get access to the most advanced trading solutions, including up to 10x leveraged margin trades, exclusive spot trading pairs, and fast account funding through crypto-friendly banks.

Also, OKCoin has custom services for different types of business clients according to business categories, such as trading firms, payment providers, liquidity providers, financial intermediaries, and more. A considerable portion of the platform’s services is clearly dedicated to business clients.

Crypto Coins Available on OKCoin

OKCoin’s range of available digital currencies reflects the platform’s decision to exclusively include well-developed projects with a solid market reputation and high trading demand. 

In total, OKCoin has a little over 100 tokens. This isn’t a lot when compared to some of the largest exchange platforms, but the choice of assets is really top-of-the-line and will satisfy both beginners and advanced traders.

Users can invest in Bitcoin (BTC), Avalanche (AVAX), Litecoin (LTC), Dai (DAI), Stacks (STX), Stellar Lumens (XLM), The Graph (GRT), Aave (AAVE) Tezos (XTZ), Optimis (OP), Ethereum (ETH), Loopring (LRC), Ziliqa (ZIL), Flare (FLR), Kusama (KSM), and 80+ altcoins. 

Fiat Currencies Supported on OKCoin

Despite being available in 190 countries, OKCoin only supports US dollars. However, if you pay for crypto with a debit or credit card, you can pay with your local currency and have it converted to USD by your payment provider. 

Countries Supported on OKCoin

The OKCoin website states that the exchange is available in 190 countries, so it’s easier to just list the regions where it isn’t available. 

These countries include a few US states, including New York, Hawaii, Nevada, and West Virginia. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, users from Iran, North Korea, Ecuador, Bangladesh, Bolivia, and a couple more countries can’t access OKCoin.

OKCoin Fees

OKCoin has quite low fees for its spot trading service. On the pro trading interface, takers with a 30-day trading volume below 100,000 USD incur a 0.2% fee, while makers pay a meager 0.1% fee for the same volume.

Users with higher trading volumes incur lower fees based on their fee tier, down to the 0% tier for major market makers with over 500 million in trades on a monthly basis. Market takers in the same fee tier incur a 0.02% fee. 

As for the instant trading option, OKCoin claims that there are 0% fees for buying or selling crypto, however, it isn’t clear whether the platform charges a trading spread. It’s important to note that the 0% fees only apply when users spend the USD funds from their OKCoin accounts. 

If you want to buy crypto with a bank card, you should consider the 2.49% fee, which is much lower than the 3.99% or even 4.99% fees on some other popular trading platforms. The same 2.49% fee applies to Google Pay purchases.

Users can also fund their accounts with a bank account transfer, and these transactions don’t incur any charges, regardless if they are ACH or SWIFT transfers. 

Withdrawals also have different fees, and you’ll have to pay a 50 USD withdrawal fee for wire transfers. ACH withdrawals cost 1 USD, while withdrawals to a EUR account incur the same fee, plus the USD to EUR conversion fees. Withdrawals to banks in other global regions have a fixed 50 USD fee, with the addition of the conversion fee for local fiat currencies. 

Main Features of OKCoin

We can divide the key features of OKCoin into basic trading features and enterprise client features. 

Regarding crypto trading, the OKCoin user interface is divided into an instant buy/sell and advanced trading section. Crypto newcomers can buy over 100 digital currencies by clicking on the appropriate crypto in the Buy/Sell menu. 

This feature takes users to a trade finalization screen where they need to specify how much money they want to spend. Users will see the number of tokens they’ll get for their money. Once initiated, the trade takes less than one minute to go through, and users will receive the crypto in their OKCoin accounts. The process is similar to selling assets. Once sold, the USD profits are deposited into the user’s fiat balance. 

The OKCoin advanced trading option takes users to a spot trading interface with a price chart and an order book. Besides standard market orders, which are immediately filled, users can initiate limit orders and different types of stop orders like trailing stop, advanced limit, and stop trigger orders. The only downside of the advanced trading feature is that users only have BTC, ETH, Tether (USDT), and USD Coin (USDC) at their disposal. 

If you plan to trade high volumes of assets, you should use the OKCoin OTC broker desk to negotiate a better rate with OKCoin’s brokers. 

Now let’s move on to enterprise client services. The platform provides businesses with exclusive services that aren’t available to individual traders. For instance, companies get access to additional trading pairs and the option to instantly transfer assets to and from their accounts with the help of crypto-friendly banks.

Also, OKCoin supports crypto custodian services for enterprises and custom APIs for companies that want to integrate OKCoin crypto features into their business models. 

How Easy Is It to Open an OKCoin Account?

Before you start trading, you need to create an OKCoin account and verify it:

• Signing up is quite simple, click on the link, provide either your email address or phone number, and create a password. 
• OKCoin will send you a code to your phone or email address. 
• Now you must comply with OKCoin’s Know-Your-Customer (KYC) protocol and verify your ID for anti-money laundering purposes.
• To do this, navigate to the Complete Profile option when you log into OKcooin. 
• Users from all regions are required to enter their full name, state, birth number, and nationality, while US residents also need to provide their bank account number. 
• The following step of the verification process is to take a photo of your ID card or passport, as well as a selfie to compare your photo with the one on your official document.
• Also, submit proof of residence in the form of a bank account statement or a utility bill with the same address as the one in your identification document.
• After submitting the required information, OKCoin will check your document and other details. Usually, this only takes around 10 to 15 minutes, and you’ll get a message notifying you that your identity has been verified.

How Secure Is OKCoin?

Back in 2016, OKCoin was targeted by a well-organized DDOS (distributed denial of service) attack on two occasions within the same day. Malicious individuals flooded OKCoin’s website with spam connections to make it impossible for regular users to log into their accounts and use the platform.

OKCoin immediately implemented countermeasures to keep the exchange operational, but the attackers dramatically increased the volume of the DDOS attack and completely paralyzed OKCoin.

The company’s cyber maintenance team decided to initiate a counter-cyber attack on the source of the DDOS to lift the pressure from the platform and shift it to a backup server with stronger safety measures. 

After the attack, OKCoin introduced a security protocol for monitoring possible platform anomalies and breaching opportunities to prevent future DDOS attacks. The company’s cybersecurity team is responsible for regularly testing the platform’s safety and patching up possible risks. Also, OKCoin claims to have partnerships with reputable cybersecurity auditing companies that make sure its safety measures are up to date.

Besides passwords, users can activate an additional two-factor authentication (2FA) feature that gives them extra protection because they need to confirm each transaction from their account by entering their 2FA code. The codes are always randomly generated and change each time a user initiates a transaction.

As for the assets stored in OKCoin user accounts, all of the cryptos are kept in cold wallets, making it extremely difficult for hackers to steal user funds because they are always offline. When users want to shift crypto from their OKCoin accounts to an external wallet, the platform fetches the crypto from the exchange’s cold wallet.

Has OKCoin Ever Been Hacked?

Besides the DDOS attack in 2016, OKCoin hasn’t had any security issues, and the platform itself has never been breached by bad actors.

Furthermore, since user assets are in company cold wallets, the only way to steal crypto from OKCoin users is to somehow trick the 2FA protocol and initiate an unauthorized transaction. The platform has a 2,000 BTC compensation fund for cases like these, but for now, there haven’t been any situations where the company had to use these assets. 

Is OKCoin a Regulated Exchange?

OKCoin is very well regulated and has an abundance of licenses from financial institutions in various global regions. In the US, OKCoin has either Money Transmission or Seller of Payment Instruments licenses in most states.

In Canada, OKCoin has a money service business regulatory license from the Canadian financial regulatory body FINTRAC. 

Also, OKCoin has the approval to provide financial services from authorities in Malta and the Netherlands, which is important for the exchange because these are two EU member countries.

Furthermore, the platform is also regulated in Singapore by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).

How Does OKCoin Compare to Other Crypto Exchange Alternatives?

OKCoin is well-positioned on the crypto market and caters to both traders and enterprise clients, so let’s compare it against two exchanges with a nearly identical business focus: Coinbase and Gemini. 

Millions of beginners and average users flock to Coinbase because the exchange is known to be quite user-friendly. Gemini, on the other hand, is a bit more complex to use. On Coinbase, traders have a broad range of 170 digital currencies at their disposal, while Gemini is a bit more limited.

If we take a look at the trading fees, OKCoin is absolutely better than Coinbase since it doesn’t charge any fees for the instant trading feature, while Coinbase charges 1% per order. Gemini’s instant trading fees are 1.49%, which is even higher. Pro trading is also way more expensive on Coinbase and Gemini than on OKCoin.

When it comes to enterprise client services, the competitor exchanges also support an OTC desk, a crypto payment option for businesses, and a crypto custodian service. Coinbase and Gemini have different names for their crypto services for different types of business clients, but when analyzed, they mainly offer the same scope of options for businesses as OKCoin.

Does OKCoin Have an App?

OKCoin’s mobile app has a five-star rating on Google Play, with over half a million downloads and more than five thousand reviews, which clearly confirms the high quality of the app. 

Users can use the app to access every OKCoin feature except for the enterprise client services and the OTC broker desk, but this isn’t a drawback since business clients use the platform’s services through the online platform or through special integrations and custom APIs for their companies. 

The app is fairly simple to use, and the exchange even managed to squeeze in a smooth pro trading experience because both the price chart, technical analysis tools, order book, and order menu are well-placed on the screen. This is a huge plus because crypto exchanges usually struggle with implementing their pro trading interface on mobile apps. 

Also, users can fund their OKCoin accounts quickly through the app by connecting a bank card or using their verified bank account. Once they initiate a funding transaction through the OKCoin app, users simply need to approve the transfer through their e-banking app, and the transfer should go through in a matter of minutes.