OKB(OKB)

Launched in March 2018 by the OK Blockchain Foundation, OKB (OKB) is the native token of the OKX cryptocurrency exchange. At the time of its launch, a total of 300 million OKB were issued as ERC-20 tokens on the Ethereum blockchain. However, OKB's supply is reduced over time through a token burn mechanism, per which 30% of all spot trading profits made by the OKX exchange are used to buy back OKB from the market and burn it.

The primary purpose of OKB is to serve as an incentivization mechanism, by rewarding token holders with various perks including fee discounts, token allocations of upcoming projects and passive income generation opportunities on the OKX exchange. It can also be used to pay trading fees.

While OKB tokens originally existed on the Ethereum blockchain, they are being migrated to OKC (formerly known as OKX Chain) — an open-source, "next-gen" blockchain built by OKX for Web 3.0 applications.

OKB price

The price of OKB gained rapid momentum after its launch in March 2018 and breached $5 within a span of 3 months. However, it succumbed to bearish pressure thereafter and gradually trended downwards to close 2018 at $0.70. The bearish conditions persisted till late March 2019, before OKB finally broke out of the $1 resistance and continued rallying upwards for the remaining part of the year, to conclude 2019 at a price of $2.67. The year 2020 brought plenty of positive price action for the OKB coin. It went past $6 multiple times, in February and September 2020, before closing 2020 on a high note at $7.63. 

A bullish start to 2021 saw OKB breach multiple resistance levels to peak at its all-time high of $44 on May 3, 2021. Many other cryptocurrencies were registering their own highs amid a major crypto boom at that time. OKB’s fully diluted valuation crossed $13 billion at its ATH. A market-wide pullback followed and OKB fell below $10 in less than two months. However, the lean phase didn’t last for very long as the second crypto bull run of 2021, which began in Q3 of that year, catapulted OKB back into the $30+ zone by the year-end. As per our OKB live price chart, the OKB price has been constantly dropping amid market-wide bearish conditions since then, and the coin was trading in the vicinity of $15 in Q3, 2022.

How OKB works

OKB token’s function is to incentivize the OKX ecosystem’s participants and OKB holders in multiple ways. Below-detailed is how it accomplishes that:

Trading fee discounts

Traders on the OKX exchange are classified as regular or VIP traders depending on their daily asset balances (in primary and sub-accounts) and 30-day trading volumes. All spot traders with less than $100,000 daily asset balance or below $1,000,000 30-day trading volume are considered regular traders. All such regular spot traders are further split into different tiers from Level 1 (< 500 OKB) to Level 5 (≥ 2,000 OKB), based on their total OKB holdings. 

Based on their level, regular spot traders can avail maker fee discounts ranging from 0.08% to 0.06%, and taker fee discounts from 0.1% to 0.08%. Similar discounts are also available for Futures and Options traders, although the classification criteria and discount percentages vary. More details can be found here.

OKX Jumpstart

This is OKX exchange’s native launchpad that provides OKX users easy and early access to token sales of the upcoming high-quality crypto projects. OKB is the only token accepted for such token sales, and investors are allocated tokens based on how many OKB they have staked and for how long. You can learn more here.  

Besides the above, OKB tokens can also be used to earn yields through different options provided in the ‘Earn’ section of the OKX website.

OKB news, updates and highlights

In important OKB news, the OKX exchange secured support from four new partners including the widely popular Ledger crypto wallet, in November 2019. The other three partners were - fiat-to-crypto exchange Bvnex, Vietnamese OTC exchange Aliniex and virtual blockchain-based retail outlet Cryptomall. These partnerships were aimed at mainstreaming the OKB ecosystem and making it more accessible for OKX’s global user base.

Furthering its commitment to decentralized finance (DeFi) and the crypto industry overall, OKX announced the launch of its DeFi Hub in September 2021. The hub serves as the platform’s decentralized digital asset ecosystem and was launched with two core products – DeFi Dashboard and an NFT Marketplace. The development augured well for OKB as any increased trading activity on the platform automatically meant higher relevance of the OKX’s native token. 

Frequently asked questions about OKB

• Is it possible to mine or stake OKB?

Although you can’t mine OKB, you can stake it to earn upcoming projects’ token allocations in the OKX platform’s ‘Jumpstart’ section.

• What are some of the best OKB wallets?

Some of the best OKB wallets are the OKX platform’s native crypto wallet, MetaMask, Ledger, Trezor and Atomic Wallet.

• What can you do with your OKB tokens?

You can use your OKB tokens to avail fee discounts while trading on OKX and earn token allocations for new blockchain/crypto projects via ‘Jumpstart’ — OKX’s native launchpad.

• How can you buy OKB?

You can buy OKB on the OKX exchange, by trading it for other major cryptocurrencies.