With the spirit of a bandit, he will walk all over the world.
In 2013, 28-year-old Xu Mingxing founded the OKCoin exchange, which became one of the three major exchanges in China, standing on equal footing with Huobi.com and Bitcoin China. At that time, OKCoin rose rapidly with its benefits and user experience, and quickly seized the market with the saying of Litecoin "Bitcoin Gold, Litecoin Silver".
In early 2014, Xu Mingxing brought in He Yi, and then He Yi poached Zhao Changpeng to OK as technical director. This iron triangle combination was praised by later generations. However, only one year later, Zhao Changpeng and Xu Mingxing fell out, and He Yi also left. Zhao Changpeng accused Xu Mingxing of controlling the company's cold wallets, condoning fake transactions by robots and employees speculating in coins.
In 2017, China's regulatory storm hit, banning ICO and fiat currency transactions. Bitcoin China was crippled, and Zhao Changpeng's Binance rose rapidly. OKCoin's domestic business was shut down and transformed into a blockchain company. Its overseas business was renamed OKEx, and the "de-Xu" campaign was launched. Xu Mingxing repeatedly showed goodwill to the government, saying that OK could be handed over to the country at any time.
After the regulatory storm, a wave of rights protection surged in OKCoin, and there were "DDV incidents" and "charcoal burning live broadcasts in hotels". In 2018, Xu Mingxing was taken away by the police, but it ended in nothing. OKCoin was accused by users of pulling out network cables, plugging in pins, falsifying data, and fixed-point liquidation, but the pattern of OKX is now very different.
In 2019, Xu Mingxing acquired Qianjin Holdings, a Hong Kong-listed company, and changed its name to OKEx Cloud Chain, becoming a matching investigation tool for many public security organs to crack cases in the currency circle. Xu Mingxing tried to promote blockchain talent training through OKEx Cloud Chain and wanted to draw a clear line with the currency circle, but OKEx Cloud Chain's profitability is still worrying.
In 2020, Xu Mingxing was investigated for the Luliang police incident, and OKEx suspended users from withdrawing coins, causing the market to plummet by 20%. A month later, Xu Mingxing was released and OK resumed withdrawals. Xu Mingxing's road to whitewashing was difficult, and the Hangzhou court ruled that OKEx and OKCoin were related.
Although He Yi said that Xu Mingxing had retired for many years, his Twitter was still marked as the CEO of OKX. Xu Mingxing's bandit temperament reminds people of Song Jiang: facing rights defenders, he said, "You bring two bottles of DDT, and we will each have one bottle"; when being investigated by the police, he posted on his WeChat Moments, "My heart is bright, what else can I say"; facing supervision, he said, "OK, I will hand it over to the country at any time."$BTC
