Exchange review · centralised · 3 min read · numbers checked 23 Sept 2026

Holds your coins

OKX review

The best play-money demo of the four, run from the Seychelles for most of the world.

By Learn Then Trade · Editorial standards

Our score

63/100

Commission is not an input

Spot fee: 0.08% / 0.1%
Futures fee: 0.02% / 0.05%
Demo: All products
$1,000 round trip: $2.00

Entry tier, maker / taker, from OKX’s own fee pages.

Quick answer. The best place to practise before you risk money: OKX’s demo account covers spot, margin, futures and options, and base spot fees are 0.08% maker / 0.10% taker. The catch is who you contract with — a Seychelles company that pleaded guilty in the US in 2025 to running an unlicensed money transmitter. Not available in the US, Canada, India, Japan, Hong Kong or Malaysia.

Pick it if

You want to rehearse every order type — spot, margin, futures, options — with play money before any real deposit.

Skip it if

Anyone in the US, Canada, India, Japan, Hong Kong or Malaysia

Where it costs you

For most of the world you contract with a Seychelles company that pleaded guilty in the US in 2025.

Our score is 63/100 from six published criteria — but read the weakness first. It is what you would want a friend to tell you.

Affiliate disclosure. The button on this page is a referral link: if you open an account through it, OKX pays us a share of its fees at no cost to you. It does not change a word above or below — if a venue stops being worth recommending, it comes off the site rather than getting a softer paragraph. Full policy.

In this review

Who you are actually dealing with
What it costs
What can go wrong
Who can use it, and who can't
Tools for learning

Who you are actually dealing with

The global okx.com site is run by Aux Cayes FinTech Co. Ltd., a company registered in the Seychelles. UK customers are also served by this company. OKX holds real licences elsewhere: in Dubai (VARA, licence VL/23/12/003, which we confirmed on VARA's register), in Singapore (a Major Payment Institution licence from MAS) and in the Bahamas. Those licences belong to separate local companies that are ring-fenced from the global one. If you sign up at okx.com from most countries, those licences do not cover your account.

In February 2025 Aux Cayes pleaded guilty in the United States to operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business. It paid a fine of about US$84 million and forfeited about US$421 million in fees. OKX published this on its own site, which counts in its favour. The plea still describes the company you would be dealing with.

What it costs

Product	Maker	Taker	Note
Spot (base tier, from 25 Nov 2025)	0.08%	0.10%	No discount for holding OKB
Perpetual futures (base tier)	0.02%	0.05%

OKX's European page shows a higher spot rate of 0.200% maker / 0.350% taker for users without a derivatives account. We could not confirm whether that rate applies outside the EEA. Check the fee page from your own account before your first trade. A round trip on spot at the base tier costs about 0.2% before spread if both orders are market orders.

What a $1,000 round trip costs in fees

Buy then sell $1,000 of crypto with market orders · entry-tier spot taker fee, both sides · spread not included

OKX is among the cheapest here: $2.00 in fees on a $1,000 round trip, against $16.00 at Kraken.

Drawn to scale from each exchange’s published fee schedule, checked 23 September 2026. Limit orders usually pay the lower maker fee.

What can go wrong

Custody. OKX has published a proof of reserves every month since November 2022, using zk-STARK proofs, and you can check your own balance against it. The proof-of-reserves page names no auditor. One OKX Learn article says independent auditors are involved, which contradicts the page itself. We go by the page.
The security fund is not insurance. OKX's own wording says its Security Fund covers shortfalls from liquidations and is "not an insurance policy".
Cold storage. OKX says more than 95% of assets are kept offline. We could not verify that figure independently.
Fake OKX sites. The FCA's warning list is full of clones using the OKX name. Type okx.com yourself or use a link you trust. Never follow a link from a direct message.
Your account. Set a withdrawal allowlist and an authenticator before your first deposit.

Who can use it, and who can't

OKX's restricted list covers Afghanistan, Canada, Cuba, Hong Kong, Iran, India, Japan, Malaysia, Nepal, North Korea, Syria, the occupied regions of Ukraine, Uzbekistan, and the United States with all its territories. US residents are sent to a separate company, OKX Inc., which excludes New York. The okx.com link on this site is not for US readers.

UK: served by the Seychelles company, which is not FCA-registered. Derivatives, margin, P2P, trading bots and on-chain earn are not offered to UK retail customers. This site shows no OKX link to UK readers.

If you have read the above

Open the account, finish identity checks the same day, switch on a passkey or authenticator app before the first deposit — and spend your first week in the demo, then start with an amount you can afford to lose entirely.

Checking whether OKX is offered where you are…

Education only. Most retail traders lose money.

Tools for learning

This is where OKX stands out for a beginner. Its demo trading mode is a real paper-trading account covering spot, margin, futures and options, and it is open to ordinary customers. Placing a stop order, a limit order and a leveraged position with play money, and seeing how each one fills, teaches more than most articles can. If you open an account anywhere, spend your first week in a demo like this one.

How do you set up OKX safely?

An account is only as safe as its first ten minutes. In order:

Turn on a passkey or an authenticator app — not SMS. See security basics.
Set an anti-phishing code and a withdrawal allowlist before you deposit anything.
Place your first orders in the demo: a limit order, a stop, and one small position you watch fill.
Decide how much to leave on the exchange like you would size a position — read position sizing and custody and exchange risk.

How does OKX compare?

Same checks, same date, side by side:

All of them in one table →

How we scored it: 63/100

Six criteria, 0–5 each, scored only from what the exchange and its regulators publish. Commission is not one of them. How we review

Fee transparency4/5
Simple public base rates; a higher EEA rate for some users is not clearly scoped.
Security practices3/5
Monthly zk-STARK proof of reserves, but no named auditor — and OKX’s own pages disagree about that.
Regulation and disclosure2/5
The global site is a Seychelles company that pleaded guilty in the US in 2025; its real licences sit with ring-fenced local companies.
Education3/5
A learning hub exists; useful, not independent.
Usable by a learner5/5
A genuine retail demo account across spot, margin, futures and options — the best of the four.
Support2/5
Chat, tickets and a voicemail line, but no response commitment.

Who you are actually dealing with

What it costs

What can go wrong

Who can use it, and who can't

Open an account

Tools for learning

How do you set up OKX safely?

How does OKX compare?

How we scored it: 63/100

Sources, checked 23 Sept 2026