Crypto Exchange OKEx Is Giving Customers up to $1,000

Crypto exchange OKEx rolled out a compensation plan today to reward users who continued to trade on the exchange even after it had to pause all withdrawals, as per a release shared with Decrypt. Withdrawals are set to open on November 27, after more than a month of being paused.

“We [OKEx] know that we are nothing without users and we want to demonstrate this by offering them significant rewards and incentives to ensure that OKEx remains their platform of choice," said the firm’s CEO, Jay Hao, in a statement.

OKEx faced troubles last month after its founder and private key holder Star Xu was taken away by police in China, causing the exchange to cease the processing of all withdrawals—which require private key holders to cryptographically sign and approve transfers—for over a month. However, it urged users to stick around and continue to trade on the exchange at the time.

It’s giving back to the faithful today. As per the compensation plan, users who held over $10,000 in total assets on the exchange will be rewarded between $100 to $1,000 based on the volume they traded in the period when withdrawals were paused, in the form of a rebate.

Other users, holders, and depositors, will receive rewards from an “incentive fund” created by OKEx, compromising 20% of its total income from futures and perpetual swap transaction fees over the last seven weeks. These rewards will be based on the total assets they held and the amount they traded.

OKEx Token Price Rises 11% on Rumors of Founder’s Release

OKB, the coin that powers Chinese cryptocurrency exchange OKEx, jumped by 11% today after rumors surfaced that Chinese authorities have released from custody the exchange’s founder, Mingxing “Star” Xu. The price of an OKB, as of this writing, is $5.42, up from $4.81 yesterday. When Xu was detained in mid-October, the price of OKB fell from about $6.00 to $4.26. The exchange paused withdrawals after reports surfaced that Chinese police had taken Xu into custody. OKEx disputes this characterizati...

That’s not all. OKEx will continue to reward users over the next few weeks as part of a ‘Happy Friday,’ offer, collecting a portion of all futures and perpetual swap trading fees to incentivize its user base (and to arguably prevent outflows of funds en masse).

Meanwhile, the exchange hopes to avoid such a situation in the future. It noted on a recent blog, “If any private key holder is temporarily unable to perform their duties due to an accident or participation in highly confidential work, we will enable the backup private key within 30 days.”