Crypto / OKX Glossary

Account & KYC

Signup, identity verification, and account settings

Affiliate: The marketing partnership between OKX and independent third-party sites like CryptoDesk. Affiliate partners drive sign-ups through their tracked links; OKX pays an affiliate commission. CryptoDesk passes 20% of that back to the user via OKX's built-in rebate mechanism.
AML: The compliance and monitoring framework exchanges use to track suspicious fund flows. KYC is the front-end of AML. AML systems flag suspicious transactions and may freeze the originating account. Standard users aren't affected, but using someone else's bank card to deposit will absolutely trip AML controls — and the same applies to IRS / FinCEN / HMRC reporting downstream.
CEX: OKX, Binance, Coinbase, Kraken, Gemini — exchanges where the platform holds the private keys to user funds. Pros: deep liquidity, real customer support, easy fiat rails. Trade-off: you don't actually hold your assets, and you carry the platform's operational risk.
DEX: Uniswap, dYdX, Curve, GMX — users trade directly from self-custody wallets against smart contracts. Pros: you always hold your assets. Trade-off: higher operational complexity, no support desk, gas costs, and smart-contract risk.
Invitation / Referral code: The unique identifier OKX uses to attribute referrals. You enter it once at signup and it's permanently bound to the account. CryptoDesk's referral code is OK18866, which gets you a 20% fee rebate. It cannot be added after the account is created — this is by OKX design.
KYC: The exchange's identity-verification process, required to comply with anti-money-laundering laws (similar to what US brokerages run under FinCEN rules and what UK exchanges run under HMRC and FCA rules). Usually requires a government-issued ID (national ID, passport, or driver's license) plus a face liveness check. OKX has two levels: Lv.1 (covers most functionality) and Lv.2 (higher fiat limits). Beginners only need Lv.1.
OKX / OKEx / Okcoin: Three names for the same group at different points in its history:; Brand timeline: Okcoin (2014) → OKEx (2017) → OKX (2022 to present). The 2022 rename signaled a shift from pure exchange to a Web3 platform (dropping "Ex" = Exchange).; Our referral code OK18866 (see referral page) is unaffected by historical names — it works at the current OKX entity.
PoR: A two-part on-chain proof: the exchange shows it controls assets, and a Merkle tree of user balances shows your balance is included in the liabilities total. Both halves are required for a real PoR. OKX publishes monthly. Became an industry baseline after FTX collapsed.

Trading & orders

Spot, order types, fee structure

C2C: OKX's escrowed peer-to-peer marketplace for buying USDT with local fiat (used heavily across Asia-Pacific where card rails are limited). Order matching plus on-platform escrow are run by OKX.
DCA / Auto-Invest: Buying a fixed amount on a fixed schedule, smoothing entry cost over time. Removes the timing question and enforces discipline. Works well on assets with a long-term uptrend (BTC, ETH); less useful in pure downtrends or over very short windows.
Fee tier: OKX automatically promotes users through fee tiers based on 30-day trading volume: Lv.1 → Lv.2 → Lv.3 → VIP1 → ... → VIP8. Most first-year retail users sit at Lv.1 (0.10% Taker).
Grid bot: Within a price range you set, the bot automatically buys low and sells high. Profits in ranging markets; loses money in trending markets (the bot gets stuck or stranded once price breaks the range). OKX's spot grid bot is leverage-free, which keeps risk relatively contained.
Limit order: You set a price; the order rests on the book until the market reaches it. May wait, may never fill, but the price is controlled. The default choice for beginners.
Maker / Taker: Maker: your limit order doesn't fill immediately and sits on the book → you add liquidity → lower fee. Taker: your market order or aggressive limit hits an existing order and fills immediately → you remove liquidity → higher fee. OKX Lv.1 spot: Maker 0.08% / Taker 0.10%.
Market order: You set an amount; the order fills immediately at the best available book price. Fast but can slip — the actual fill can be far from where you thought you were buying. Beginners should avoid these, especially on low-cap pairs.
OKB: OKX's native platform token. Functions: ~25% trading-fee discount, access to Jumpstart and certain Earn products. Essentially a bet on OKX's future profitability and inherits the exchange's overall operational risk. We don't recommend that beginners buy OKB just for fee discounts — OKB's price volatility can swallow the fee savings.
Order book: The list of all resting orders shown on the right side of a trading page. Red rows = asks (sellers); green rows = bids (buyers); the gap is the spread. Depth reflects liquidity — deeper books mean smaller slippage on large orders.
Slippage: The difference between your expected fill price and your actual fill price. Worst with low liquidity, large size, or fast-moving markets; 5-10% on low-cap pairs is common. Mitigation: use limit orders, stick to major pairs, avoid large market orders.
Spot: Direct buy and sell of real coins using USDT or USDC. Maximum loss is your principal. The right starting point for beginners. Contrast with derivatives (futures, options).
Stop-loss / Take-profit: Pre-set "sell automatically at price X" conditional orders. Stop-loss: trigger fires when price falls, capping the loss. Take-profit: trigger fires when price rises, locking in the gain. Beginner default: -8% stop, +15% take-profit.

Derivatives & leverage

Futures, perpetuals, options, leverage

ADL / Auto-Deleveraging: In extreme conditions, when the exchange's insurance fund runs short, OKX force-closes part of the profitable positions on the other side to cover the shortfall. So even if you were right and made money, you may be force-reduced. Rare but it has happened.
Basis: Futures price minus spot price. Positive basis (futures > spot) = market positioned long; negative basis = positioned short. Foundation of cash-and-carry arbitrage.
Funding rate: A payment exchanged between longs and shorts on a perpetual swap every 8 hours. When the perpetual trades above spot, longs pay shorts; and vice versa. Extreme readings (+0.1% per 8h ≈ 110% annualized) make holding the position very expensive.
IV / Implied volatility: Volatility back-solved from option prices — the market's expectation of future price movement. BTC 30-day IV around 50% is normal; above 80% signals panic or major event risk. Not a directional forecast, just a market temperature gauge.
Leverage: Borrowing to size up. 10× leverage means $1 of margin controls $10 of position. Both wins and losses are magnified. OKX offers up to 100× on BTC perps. No beginner should use any leverage in their first year.
Liquidation: When margin falls to the maintenance level, the system force-closes the position and principal is wiped out. At 10× leverage, an adverse move of about 10% triggers it. OKX uses an insurance fund to prevent socialized losses.
Margin: The collateral you post for a futures position. Modes: isolated (only this position's collateral) vs. cross (all available account funds). Beginners should always use isolated — a single bad position liquidates without spreading to your other positions.
Options: The right (call or put) to buy or sell at a future price. Buyers pay a premium; sellers collect it. More complex than perps but with capped loss (you can only lose the premium you paid). OKX offers BTC and ETH options.
Perpetual swap: A futures contract with no expiry, holdable indefinitely. Longs and shorts settle a funding rate every 8 hours to keep perp price anchored to spot. Supports leverage. The single largest source of beginner losses.

Security & risk

2FA, anti-phishing, whitelists, and more

2FA: A second authentication factor on top of your password. Must use Google Authenticator or a hardware key (YubiKey); do not rely on SMS, which is vulnerable to SIM-swap attacks.
Anti-phishing code: A string only you know that OKX appends to every legitimate email it sends you. Missing or wrong code = phishing email.
API key: The credential that lets third-party tools (trading bots, accounting software like Cointracker or Koinly) talk to your OKX account. Three permission scopes: Read / Trade / Withdraw. Never grant Withdraw to a third-party tool.
Cold wallet: A hardware device whose private key never touches the internet (Ledger, Trezor, SafePal, Coldcard). The safest way to hold assets. Right tool for long-term holdings (6+ months untouched).
Hot wallet: A wallet whose private key lives on an internet-connected device (MetaMask, Phantom, Rabby). Safer than leaving funds on a CEX, riskier than a cold wallet. Good for medium-term holdings and DeFi activity.
Phishing: Tricking you into giving up your password or private key by impersonating OKX via fake websites, emails, or "support staff". Common impostor domains: okx-secure.com, 0kx.com, okx-vip.io. The only real OKX domain is okx.com.
SIM swap: An attack where the adversary social-engineers your carrier (AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon — all have well-documented incidents) into porting your number to their SIM, then intercepts SMS codes. The FCC has formally warned consumers about it. This is why SMS shouldn't be your primary 2FA.
Withdrawal whitelist: Restricts withdrawals to pre-approved addresses. If the account is compromised, the attacker still can't move funds out (only to your own whitelisted addresses). The single highest-leverage security setting.

On-chain & assets

On-chain transfers, wallets, and assets

Airdrop: A project distributes tokens for free to wallet addresses meeting certain criteria (early users, community contributors). "Join a Telegram to claim your airdrop" is almost always a scam. Legitimate airdrops typically require no active claim outreach.
Depeg: A stablecoin's price drifts from its peg (e.g. USDC dropping to $0.87). Causes: reserve issues, banking crisis, or loss of confidence. USDC depegged to $0.87 in March 2023 after Silicon Valley Bank failed; recovered within 3 days.
ERC20: Ethereum's token standard. Gas costs are high ($3-$15), but the ecosystem is the broadest — nearly all DeFi and NFTs live on ERC20.
Gas / Gas fee: The fee charged by miners or validators to process an on-chain transaction. Ethereum gas is high ($3-$15), Tron is low ($1), Solana is near-zero ($0.001). Gas fluctuates with network congestion.
Merkle tree: A cryptographic data structure that lets you prove "this data is included in the larger set" without revealing the rest. PoR uses a Merkle tree so users can verify their own balance is included in the exchange's published liabilities total.
Seed phrase: 12 or 24 English words — a human-readable backup of the wallet's private key. Lose it and the wallet is gone forever. Write it down offline (a steel backup plate in a fireproof container); never store it in cloud notes, screenshots, or messaging apps.
Self-custody: You hold your own private keys, as opposed to leaving the assets with a CEX. Pros: even if the CEX disappears, your funds don't. Trade-off: lose the keys, lose the funds, with no support desk to call.
TRC20: The Tron-network token standard. USDT-TRC20 transfers cost roughly $1 in gas, making it the cheapest stablecoin rail in common use. Confirm the destination supports TRC20 before sending — wrong-network sends usually can't be recovered.
USDC: Stablecoin issued by Circle, pegged 1:1 to USD. Better disclosure than USDT, with monthly attestations, and operates under US regulatory frameworks. Briefly depegged to $0.87 in March 2023 (Silicon Valley Bank exposure); recovered in 3 days.
USDT: Stablecoin issued by Tether, pegged 1:1 to USD. The largest stablecoin by market cap (~60% share). Transparency has long been a source of debate but no major depeg has occurred. Issued on multiple chains (TRC20, ERC20, BEP20, etc.) — the network must match on both ends of a transfer.

OKX-specific terms

OKX-native products and features

Auto-Invest: OKX's native automated DCA product. Configure once (coin + amount + frequency + time) and OKX debits and buys on schedule. From $10 per cycle.
Copy trading: OKX product that lets you mirror professional traders' positions. We do not recommend this for beginners — most copy-traded "leaders" are net-negative over long horizons, and the profit-share economics favor the platform and trader, not the follower.
Earn: OKX's simple yield products. Flexible stablecoin yields run ~3-6% APY; fixed terms are higher; staking is also available. Relatively low risk (but not zero — like any CEX yield product, it carries the exchange's operational risk).
Jumpstart: OKX's token launch / mining platform. Stake OKB or a designated token to mine new project tokens, similar to Binance Launchpool. Not recommended for beginners — most launches dump shortly after listing.
P2P marketplace: OKX's C2C fiat marketplace. Users trade USDT against local fiat (local APAC currencies plus a range of others) directly, with OKX-provided escrow. Primary deposit channel for many APAC users.
Rebate: The mechanism by which an OKX affiliate partner passes part of their commission back to referred users. CryptoDesk passes 20% back in real time via OKX's built-in partner-rebate system: OKX aggregates the prior hour's qualifying trades hourly and credits the rebate to your "Affiliate Center" — not a monthly settlement, but hourly.

Don't see the term you're looking for?

This glossary is maintained on a rolling basis. If you run into a term that's missing, email us at privacy@zxccex.com and we'll add it during the next monthly review (first week of each month).