🚀Xu Mingxing's OK Empire-OKcoin
The three major exchanges with Chinese background: Binance has always been Binance, Huobi was once Huobi, and OKX was once OKEX, and OKEX was previously called OKcoin. To avoid confusion, let’s start with OKcoin (2013-2017.9.4)
In May 2013, 28-year-old Xu founded OK and OKCoin Exchange was born. On September 1, Li Lin's Huobi.com was established. Domestic exchanges are OKCoin, Huobi.com, and Bitcoin China.
🚀The three major institutions at that time
Bitcoin China has the first-mover advantage, Huobi focuses on free transaction fees, and OKCoin's advantages lie in benefits and user experience.
The rise of OKcoin is also inseparable from Charlie Lee’s Litecoin $LTC. “Bitcoin is gold, Litecoin is silver.” Old people in the cryptocurrency circle have heard this sentence. It was the first to open Litecoin transactions, pushing LTC to become the second largest cryptocurrency in circulation market value. OKCoin became the leader, accounting for half of the transaction volume in the crypto market.
🚀The OK triangle with He Yi and Zhao Changpeng
In early 2014, Xu Mingxing invited He Yi to join OK. In June of the same year, He Yi recruited Zhao Changpeng to OK as technical director. This was praised by later generations as the iron triangle. However, just one year later, in February 2015, CZ and Xu broke up and left. In July, He Yi also left OK. The disagreement was that CZ accused Xu of letting his own people control the company's cold wallets, condoning fake transactions by robots and employees speculating on cryptocurrencies.
🚀Regulatory storm: OKcoin to OKEX
In 1994, not only was ICO banned, but also the fiat currency trading channels were closed, Bitcoin China was crippled. Strangely, after CZ left, Binance, which only did currency-to-currency trading, rose strongly. After 1994, OKcoin’s domestic business was shut down and transformed into a blockchain company. OKCoin’s overseas division was renamed OKEx, and the “de-Xu” movement was launched. Xu surrendered to the government many times and said that OK could be handed over to the country at any time.
🚀OKcoin rights protection incident
After 1994, the legal gap was filled, and a wave of rights protection came. The OKcoin rights protection case had a great impact, the "DDV incident", the hotel charcoal burning live broadcast, the 80-year-old man's rights protection, etc. In 2018, Xu was taken away by the SH police, but nothing was done.
KCoin has been criticized the most for its contracts which are dozens of times larger, the highest in the industry. Users have accused OK of pulling out network cables, plugging pins, falsifying data, and targeted liquidations. This is not groundless, but the current OKX structure is much larger.
🚀The other leg of OK's transformation - OKLink
In January 2019, Xu acquired Qianjin Holdings, a Hong Kong-listed company, and renamed it OKEx. It is worth mentioning that OKEx has become a tool for many police investigations to solve cryptocurrency cases. With the help of OKEx, Xu launched the "Kunpeng Project" to promote the cultivation of blockchain talents in the mainland, and wanted to completely draw a line with cryptocurrency. OKEx is still active until now, but its profitability is worrying.
🚀Xu Mingxing Luliang Police Incident
On October 18, 2020, OKEx announced that Xu Mingxing was under investigation by the Chinese public security authorities. Just two days ago, on the 16th, OKEx announced that the person in charge of the private key was cooperating with the public security authorities in the investigation and suspending user withdrawals. 15 billion was locked up, and this incident caused several mainstream currencies to plummet by 20%!
One month later, Xu was released and OKEx resumed withdrawals. If you say this is a coincidence, I'm afraid no one will believe it. The China Blockchain Application Research Center, of which Xu Mingxing was the founding chairman, was abolished. In the case in which private equity tycoon Yang Yongxing sued Xu Mingxing, the Hangzhou Internet Court ruled that there was a connection between OKEx and OKcoin. The road to whitewashing is difficult and long.
🚀The relationship between Xu Mingxing and OKX
For newcomers in the cryptocurrency circle, Binance's Zhao Changpeng and Huobi's Sun Yuchen are very familiar, but Xu Mingxing is rarely heard of. This is intentional. He Yi also tweeted that Xu Mingxing has retired for several years, but his Twitter account @star_okx is still marked as CEO of OKX, and his location is California, USA.
Xu Mingxing's influence on OKX's business, at least as presented to users, is minimal. This reminds people of CZ and Li Lin. Perhaps this is the "original sin of the founder". The person who wrote the myth script is not suitable to perform on the stage!
🚀Xu Mingxing's bookishness
After reading a lot of information about Xu, the biggest impression I got was: scholarly spirit! When facing rights defenders whose contracts were liquidated, he said: You bring two bottles of dichlorvos, one for each of us. When he was taken away by the police for investigation, he posted on WeChat Moments: My heart is bright, what else can I say? When facing state supervision, he said: Ok, I will hand it over to the state at any time!
The heroic spirit of the rivers and lakes, the truth of saints, loyalty to the emperor and patriotism, are very similar to the tangled and sentimental Song Jiang! The road to amnesty is difficult. In the rivers and lakes, you can call the wind and rain, and everyone calls you the big brother for life. In the court, even the petty officials can make you submissive.
The cryptocurrency circle is difficult, but leaving it to start a business is even harder. Xu Mingxing may not have gotten what he wanted along the way, and the things he worried about were eventually lost!
