OKX scores 4.1 out of 5 on our six-dimension scorecard as of September 2026, leading on derivatives with a unified account, portfolio margin and an options market, competitive on fees and securityOKX scores 4.1 out of 5 on our six-dimension scorecard as of September 2026, leading on derivatives with a unified account, portfolio margin and an options market, competitive on fees and security
OKX Review 2026: 4.1 Out of 5, the Most Complete Offshore Exchange, and What It Costs at the Regular Tier
OKX scores 4.1 out of 5 on our six-dimension scorecard as of September 2026, leading on derivatives with a unified account, portfolio margin and an options market, competitive on fees and security disclosure, and trailing only on listing breadth and on the fiat routes we could not measure this cycle; it suits hedged and API-driven traders outside the United States and the United Kingdom, and it is the wrong pick for makers who want 0% on day one and for traders whose edge is in tokens that curated venues list late.
Key Takeaways
- OKX scores 4.1 out of 5 overall, the second-highest score in this series, with a 5.0 on derivatives and a 4.5 on security and custody.
- The regular tier is 0.08% maker and 0.10% taker on spot, 0.02% and 0.05% on perpetuals and 0.02% and 0.03% on options, and the same schedule applies to web and API orders.
- On $500,000 of monthly spot volume, resting orders cost $4,800 a year on OKX and $0 at MEXC's published maker rate, while a bot trading perpetuals through an API pays $3,000 on OKX and $4,800 on MEXC.
- OKX publishes a monthly zk-STARK proof of reserves and has no exchange custody breach on record; its DEX aggregator was paused in March 2025 after misuse reports.
- OKX Europe has held a MiCA authorisation from Malta since 27 January 2025, OKX's operating entity pleaded guilty in the United States in February 2025 and paid about $504 million, and a separate US platform launched in April 2025.
- Third-party trackers attribute roughly 481 perpetual contracts to OKX against more than 1,040 on MEXC's fee page, and OKX is the only platform in our listing disclosure index without a named delisting framework.
Why Do Professionals Ask Whether OKX Should Be Their Main Exchange?
OKX is the offshore exchange with the fewest gaps, one login covering spot, perpetuals, options and a self-custody wallet with collateral pooled under a unified account, and the question its users actually ask is not whether to leave but whether it should hold the bulk of their activity, because running everything through one venue is simpler and running everything through the wrong one is expensive.
The case for OKX as that main venue is strong on structure.
Portfolio margin lets offsetting positions reduce the margin a hedged book has to post, the options market is one of the few sizeable ones on a centralised exchange, and the entity serving European customers is authorised under MiCA.
The case has two costs that only show up in the fee history: a spot schedule that starts at 0.08% maker, and a curated contract list that leaves a large share of the market's smaller contracts unlisted.
The rest of this review scores both sides of that trade, dimension by dimension, with every number dated.
How We Scored OKX
This review scores OKX from 0 to 5 on six equally weighted dimensions: fees and costs, asset coverage, derivatives, security and custody, deposits and withdrawals, and customer support.
Every figure comes from OKX's own fee schedule, help centre, proof-of-reserves pages or terms, from a regulator, from CoinGecko or another third-party tracker, or from an established news organisation, and each carries a retrieval date.
Regional availability and regulatory standing are disclosed but never scored, because a platform is either usable where you live or it is not.
MEXC operates a competing exchange, and the full scoring rules, source hierarchy and conflict-of-interest policy are published in our exchange review methodology.
The support score is based on published channels only; our timed-ticket test for this platform is scheduled for the next review cycle.
OKX Scorecard 2026: Six Scores and One Overall Figure
OKX earns 4.1 out of 5 overall, with a 5.0 on derivatives, 4.5 on security and custody, 4.0 on fees and costs and on customer support, and 3.5 on asset coverage and on deposits and withdrawals, a profile built for hedged, multi-product traders rather than for makers or new-listing hunters.
Dimension | Score (out of 5) | What we measured | Verified against |
Fees and costs | 4 | 0.08% maker and 0.10% taker on spot at the regular tier, 0.02% and 0.05% on perpetuals, 0.02% and 0.03% on options, one schedule for web and API orders, tiers climbed through OKB holdings or 30-day volume | Official fee page, 31 August 2026 |
Asset coverage | 3.5 | Roughly 481 perpetual contracts attributed by third-party trackers, a curated spot list, a 26-hour listing decision on TRUMP per Reuters, no named delisting framework in our listing disclosure index | Third-party trackers, Reuters, our listing disclosure index |
Derivatives | 5 | Unified account with portfolio margin, perpetuals at 0.02% maker and 0.05% taker, an options market at 0.02% and 0.03%, funding every eight hours | Official fee page and product documentation |
Security and custody | 4.5 | Monthly zk-STARK proof of reserves with more than 24 consecutive attestations recorded by Hacken by January 2025, no exchange custody breach on record, DEX aggregator paused on 17 March 2025 after misuse reports | Proof-of-reserves pages, Hacken case study, mainstream reporting |
Deposits and withdrawals | 3.5 | Crypto rails with full KYC required upfront; fiat routes vary by market and were not verified on an open page in this review | Help centre and terms |
Customer support | 4 | Help centre, live chat and ticket channels; timed ticket test not yet run | Platform support pages |
Overall | 4.1 | Average of the six dimensions | Methodology page |
What Does OKX Charge in Fees?
Fees and costs: 4.0 out of 5.
OKX charges 0.08% maker and 0.10% taker on spot at the regular tier, 0.02% maker and 0.05% taker on every perpetual, and 0.02% maker and 0.03% taker on options, with the tiers above the regular one reached through OKB holdings or 30-day volume, and the same schedule applying whether an order comes from the web, the app or an API.
Which of OKX's three fee schedules an account actually sits on depends on its entity and product set, and our guide to OKX fees walks through the global, EEA and US versions.
The single-schedule design is the feature a bot operator will notice first, because a strategy that runs through an API pays exactly what a manual trader pays.
Our methodology prices the same monthly volume on every platform, so the table below runs three volumes as spot taker orders for a full year and adds the maker line and the API line where the order of the comparison changes.
Scenario | OKX at the regular tier | MEXC at the standard tier |
$1,000 of monthly spot taker volume | $12 a year at 0.10% | $6 a year at 0.05%; $4.80 with the MX deduction |
$50,000 of monthly spot taker volume | $600 a year at 0.10% | $300 a year; $240 with the MX deduction |
$500,000 of monthly spot taker volume | $6,000 a year at 0.10% | $3,000 a year; $2,400 with the MX deduction |
$500,000 of monthly spot maker volume | $4,800 a year at 0.08% | $0 at the published maker rate |
$500,000 of monthly BTC perpetual taker volume, web or app | $3,000 a year at 0.05% | $1,200 a year at the 0.020% BTCUSDT Special Rate |
$500,000 of monthly perpetual taker volume through an API | $3,000 a year at 0.05% | $4,800 a year at 0.080% on MEXC's API futures schedule |
Calculated from each platform's published regular or standard tier, verified as of 2 September 2026; OKB tiers and the MX deduction can lower effective rates; MEXC's API futures schedule overrides its discounts; spreads, funding and network fees are excluded.
The score sits at 4.0 rather than higher because the regular spot tier is above the 0.05% and 0.10% band that the cheapest offshore venues publish, and rather than lower because the perpetual and options rates are competitive and the schedule is one page with no asterisks.
How Broad Is OKX's Asset Coverage?
Asset coverage: 3.5 out of 5.
Third-party trackers attribute roughly 481 perpetual contracts to OKX, its spot list is curated, and it is the only platform in our eight-exchange listing disclosure index that publishes no named delisting framework, so the catalogue is deep on majors, thinner on the long tail, and less predictable than its peers when a token is removed.
We do not score platforms on self-reported coin totals, and the tracked contract count is the figure we cite.
OKX is not slow when it decides to move: Reuters reported that OKX made its listing decision on TRUMP within 26 hours, and that the ten largest venues took an average of 129 days to list the four biggest meme coins launched since 2022.
The difference is what happens on the hundreds of launches that never get a same-day decision at a curated venue, and that is the reader for whom a 481-contract list is a limitation rather than a filter.
On the way out, our listing disclosure index records that OKX names no standing delisting framework, which means a holder of a delisted token relies on each announcement rather than on a published rule.
Speed carries the usual trade-off in the other direction: a faster listing pipeline means less vetting, and OKX's slower process is a filter as much as a delay.
How Strong Is OKX for Derivatives?
Derivatives: 5.0 out of 5.
OKX runs a unified account that pools collateral across spot, margin, perpetuals and options, a portfolio margin mode that lets offsetting positions reduce the margin a hedged book has to post, perpetuals at 0.02% maker and 0.05% taker, and one of the few sizeable options markets on a centralised exchange at 0.02% maker and 0.03% taker, which is the most complete derivatives stack in this series.
For a trader running hedged books the margin efficiency is real money, and it is the reason the higher headline spot fee is not the end of the argument.
The options market is a fork in the road rather than a comparison, because most offshore competitors, MEXC included, do not offer one.
Funding settles every eight hours and no exchange discounts it, so a position held for days is priced by funding rather than by the trading fee.
A leverage number without its position band is marketing rather than a specification, so we do not quote a single maximum figure for OKX, and the risk-limit tiers on any contract are the thing to read before sizing a position.
The one place OKX gives ground is the number of contracts, roughly 481 against more than 1,040 on MEXC's fee page, which matters to a trader whose edge is in small-cap perpetuals and not to one running spreads on majors.
Is OKX Safe? Security, Custody and the March 2025 Aggregator Pause
Security and custody: 4.5 out of 5.
OKX publishes a monthly proof of reserves using zk-STARK cryptography, which lets a user verify that their balance is included without exposing other users' data, has no exchange custody breach on record, and paused its DEX aggregator on 17 March 2025 after reports that it had been used to launder funds tied to the Lazarus Group, an incident that touched the on-chain product rather than exchange custody.
Hacken's case study records more than 24 consecutive monthly attestations by January 2025, and the zk-STARK method is the more technically rigorous of the reserve disclosure approaches in this series.
The March 2025 pause, as reported by BleepingComputer, is what coupling a self-custody product to an exchange brand costs: the aggregator inherits the exchange's compliance obligations, and an outage on one side interrupts the other.
Our rule for this dimension is consistent across the series: a monthly attested reserve report and no custody incident on record earn the leading band, and the half point above 4.5 would need a named auditor's sign-off on each monthly report rather than a cryptographic self-attestation with a third-party case study behind it.
Two-factor authentication, withdrawal whitelisting, anti-phishing codes and device management are all available and should all be switched on before an account holds a balance.
For how OKX's reserve method compares with every other major exchange, our proof-of-reserves comparison sets the methods side by side, and our crypto exchange hacks database lists 81 breaches with their reimbursement outcomes.
How Easy Are Deposits and Withdrawals on OKX?
Deposits and withdrawals: 3.5 out of 5.
OKX requires full identity verification upfront before an account can fund or trade, its crypto rails cover the networks a global exchange is expected to cover, and its fiat routes vary by market in ways we could not verify on an open page in this review, which is why the score sits at 3.5 rather than at the level its rails may deserve.
Our methodology scores what can be read on a published page, and where a platform's fiat menu is shown only after sign-in or differs by entity, the score reflects the disclosure rather than the rail.
Withdrawal limits are set per verification level and shown inside the account, and a small test withdrawal before moving size is the rule on every platform in this series.
The next review cycle will measure OKX's fiat routes directly, and the score will move if they can be read on an open page.
What Is OKX Customer Support Like?
Customer support: 4.0 out of 5.
OKX publishes a help centre, live chat and ticket channels, and we have capped the score at 4.0 until our own timed ticket test runs, because a published channel is a promise and a timed reply is a measurement.
Our rule is one non-urgent ticket per platform per review cycle, timed from submission to a reply that answers the question, and OKX's test is scheduled for the next cycle.
Third-party review sites carry a mixed record on withdrawal reviews and bot-first replies, and our methodology does not count aggregate star ratings, so those reports are noted here rather than scored.
Where Is OKX Available, and Where Is MEXC?
OKX.com does not serve the United States, where a separate US platform launched in April 2025, restricts the United Kingdom, and serves the EEA through OKX Europe under a MiCA authorisation, while MEXC does not onboard residents of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, the EEA, Singapore or Hong Kong, so a US or UK reader needs a locally licensed venue and an EEA reader has OKX Europe and not MEXC.
OKX
OKX Europe Limited received a MiCA authorisation from Malta's Financial Services Authority on 27 January 2025, which passports its crypto-asset services across the EEA.
On 24 February 2025 OKX's operating entity pleaded guilty in the United States to operating an unlicensed money transmitting business, agreeing to a fine of about $84.4 million and forfeiture of about $420.3 million.
In April 2025 OKX launched a separate US centralised exchange and wallet in the settlement's aftermath.
Read together, those three events are the reason OKX can serve markets MEXC cannot, and the reason its US offering runs through a separate entity rather than OKX.com.
Derivatives are restricted in several jurisdictions, and full KYC is required upfront everywhere.
MEXC
MEXC does not serve residents of the United States or the United Kingdom, and readers there should use a platform licensed by their local regulator.
As of 17 September 2026, MEXC is not authorised under the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation and appears on ESMA's register of non-compliant entities following a September 2025 decision by the Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets; readers in the EU and EEA should treat a MiCA-authorised platform as the appropriate option.
MEXC's user agreement also prohibits Canada, Singapore, Hong Kong and mainland China, and the full list is in our restricted countries guide.
OKX Benefits and Limitations
Benefits
- A unified account with portfolio margin and an options market at 0.02% maker and 0.03% taker, the most complete derivatives stack in this series.
- One fee schedule for web and API orders, which makes OKX the cheaper venue for bots by a wide margin.
- A monthly zk-STARK proof of reserves with more than 24 consecutive attestations recorded by January 2025, and no exchange custody breach on record.
- A MiCA authorisation through OKX Europe and a separate US platform, plus a self-custody wallet and DEX aggregator under the same login.
Limitations
- A regular spot tier of 0.08% maker and 0.10% taker, which costs $4,800 a year in maker fees on $500,000 of monthly volume against $0 at a zero-maker venue.
- Roughly 481 perpetual contracts against more than 1,040 at the broadest competitor, and no named delisting framework.
- A February 2025 US guilty plea and about $504 million in penalties, disclosed and not scored.
- Fiat routes that vary by entity and could not be verified on an open page in this review.
Who OKX Is For, and Who Should Look Elsewhere
OKX is the right pick for traders outside the United States and the United Kingdom who run hedged books, trade options, or route strategies through an API, and it is the wrong pick for makers who want 0% from the first trade and for traders whose edge is in tokens that curated venues list late.
OKX is the right pick if:
- Your positions are meant to offset one another and portfolio margin saves you real capital.
- You trade options or multi-leg structures, which most offshore venues do not offer.
- You run bots through an API and want one schedule for every route.
Look elsewhere if:
- You place resting orders on many pairs and a 0.08% maker fee is a number you notice.
- You want small-cap contracts that a curated list of roughly 481 does not reach.
- You live in the United States or the United Kingdom, where OKX.com does not serve you and a separate or local platform is the answer.
Plenty of professionals run both: hedges and options on OKX, breadth and resting orders elsewhere, and idle balances on neither.
For the wider field of offshore options, our exchange alternatives hub carries a nine-platform availability matrix, and our listing-speed comparison sets out the timestamp method behind the breadth figures above.
The MEXC View
MEXC operates a competing exchange, and this section is where our own position is stated rather than implied.
OKX beats MEXC on derivatives structure, on the API fee line, on regulatory footprint and on reserve method, and a trader running hedged books, options or bots has a defensible reason to make OKX the main account.
Where MEXC is the answer, for readers outside its restricted markets, is the maker side and the long tail.
A spot maker moving $500,000 a month pays $4,800 a year at OKX's 0.08% and $0 at MEXC's published maker rate, a taker pays $6,000 against $3,000, or $2,400 with the MX deduction, and a manual BTC perpetual taker pays $3,000 against $1,200 at MEXC's 0.020% Special Rate.
MEXC's fee page carries more than 1,040 USDT-margined contracts against roughly 481 attributed to OKX, and CoinGecko's 2026 perpetuals report counted 879 new perpetual contracts on MEXC between January 2025 and April 2026, the most of any major centralised exchange.
Two boundaries keep the fee claim honest.
The zero applies to spot maker orders and to web and app futures orders, not to API-routed futures, which MEXC prices at 0.060% maker and 0.080% taker, so a bot pays $4,800 a year on MEXC and $3,000 on OKX on the same $500,000 of monthly volume.
And the saving is available only to readers outside the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, the EEA, Singapore and Hong Kong, where OKX or a local venue is the answer.
MEXC has no options market and no portfolio margin, and its monthly proof of reserves is audited by Hacken rather than proved with zk-STARKs, which is a different kind of evidence rather than a weaker one.
Our review desk's verdict is that OKX is the exchange we would send a hedged or automated trader to, MEXC is the exchange we would send a manual maker or a new-listing trader to, and the two accounts sit side by side in more professional setups than either platform admits.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is OKX safe to use in 2026?
OKX publishes a monthly zk-STARK proof of reserves and has no exchange custody breach on record.
It scores 4.5 out of 5 on security and custody in our review.
Has OKX ever been hacked?
No exchange custody breach is on record; OKX paused its DEX aggregator on 17 March 2025 after reports of misuse by the Lazarus Group, which affected the on-chain product rather than custody.
The aggregator resumed after control upgrades.
Is OKX legit and regulated?
OKX Europe has held a MiCA authorisation from Malta's MFSA since 27 January 2025, and a separate US platform launched in April 2025 after OKX's operating entity pleaded guilty in February 2025 and paid about $504 million.
Regulatory standing is disclosed in this review and not scored.
What are OKX's fees?
The regular tier is 0.08% maker and 0.10% taker on spot, 0.02% and 0.05% on perpetuals and 0.02% and 0.03% on options.
The same schedule applies to web, app and API orders.
Can I use OKX in the US?
OKX.com does not serve US residents; a separate US platform launched in April 2025.
The United Kingdom is restricted, and the EEA is served through OKX Europe.
Does OKX require KYC?
Yes, full identity verification is required upfront before an account can fund or trade.
Withdrawal limits are set per verification level and shown inside the account.
How does OKX compare with MEXC?
OKX leads on derivatives structure, options, the API fee line and regulatory footprint, while MEXC publishes 0% maker and 0.05% taker on spot and lists more than 1,040 perpetual contracts against roughly 481.
Readers outside the US, UK, Canada, EEA, Singapore and Hong Kong can compare the full fee stack across platforms in our exchange fee comparison.
Risk and Compliance Notice
Trading cryptocurrencies involves substantial risk, and derivatives, options and leveraged products can produce losses greater than the amount deposited.
Nothing on this page is financial, investment, legal or tax advice.
MEXC operates a competing exchange; no platform can buy a score or a ranking position on MEXC Learn.
MEXC is not available in every jurisdiction and is not authorised under the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation; readers in the European Union, the European Economic Area, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Singapore and Hong Kong should use a platform authorised by their local regulator.
Always confirm current terms on a platform's own official pages before opening an account or placing a trade.
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This article is provided by Sarah Chen for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice. Cryptocurrency markets involve significant risk. Please conduct independent research or consult a qualified professional before making any investment decisions. The views expressed do not necessarily represent those of MEXC or its affiliates.
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