A Letter from OKX CEO Star
Today, we officially launched the first version of OKX Pay for over a hundred million global users. As the industry’s first payment application that truly integrates non-custodial and compliant features, OKX Pay will be embedded in the OKX App, and is currently open to select markets, with a full launch expected in the coming months.
OKX Pay is an important step towards our vision of “integrating cryptocurrency into daily life.” Next, let us explore how OKX Pay realizes this vision.
Imagine this: effortlessly achieving non-custodial payments while earning passive income; enjoying a user experience in Web3 payment applications as smooth as in Web2 applications.
First, let us review the development history of custodial and payment solutions. Since the inception of self-custodial wallets, the concept of “Not your keys, Not your money” has been a great idea. However, due to overly complex user experiences, using self-custodial wallets smoothly remains a challenge. For instance, once a private key is lost, the associated crypto assets are completely lost.
Estimates suggest that out of a total supply of 21 million Bitcoins, approximately 3 to 4 million have been permanently lost, accounting for about 14%–19% of the total; at the current price of about $90,000 per Bitcoin, this amounts to roughly $195 billion to $260 billion.
Common reasons for asset loss include:
- Loss or forgetfulness of recovery phrases or private keys
- Hardware wallet failure without a backup
- Incorrectly sending assets to the wrong chain (e.g., sending BTC to an ETH address)
- Device or hard drive damage (e.g., the story of a landfill with 8,000 Bitcoins)
- Smart contract vulnerabilities or mistakenly sending tokens to a burn address
The field of crypto payments also faces challenges. In the early days, people attempted to use Bitcoin for payments. Do you remember the story of Laszlo Hanyecz buying pizza for 10,000 Bitcoins? At today’s price, that would be worth about $900 million.
While we now have mature stablecoin ecosystems like USDT and USDC, there are still barriers to easily transferring stablecoins to friends or making payments at PoS terminals in the same way as using a bank card or traditional payment apps. Furthermore, the lack of real-name verification (KYC) in crypto wallets makes it difficult for crypto payments to integrate into the mainstream financial system.
Currently, some institutions in the industry are adopting centralized wallets to address this issue. However, we believe that this approach is still insufficient to drive the widespread adoption of crypto payments.
With OKX Pay, we aim to enable users to conveniently use their crypto assets while remaining non-custodial. Our solution is unique, and we will detail our approach below:
- We have adopted a private key sharding management approach, splitting the private key into two parts: one half is stored in the user’s Passkey, while the other half is stored by OKX. This brings the following benefits:
- If you forget your password, you can easily recover your wallet through the ZK email recovery feature.
- No need to write down the private key on paper or keep it in a hardware wallet; Passkey is secure enough.
- Fund security is guaranteed; no one can access your funds without your authorization.
- We are committed to making crypto payments as simple as sending messages. OKX Pay will focus on stablecoin payments, initially supporting USDT and USDC, with plans to gradually integrate more stablecoins in the future. Advantages include:
- Transfer funds to anyone globally in just a few simple steps.
- Make transfers to individuals or send to groups in one go.
- All transactions on X Layer have zero fees.
- Near real-time settlement, with no limits on transfer amounts (subject to compliance and risk control).
- We are about to launch a new feature called passive income, where your deposits will automatically earn returns. Major advantages include:
- Deposits can earn returns through low-risk on-chain protocols.
- No manual operation is required; the system automatically finds quality protocols and completes staking operations.
- Deposits can be withdrawn at any time, with no lock-up periods.
- This eliminates most of the ongoing management operations required by staking schemes.
The core of OKX Pay is to achieve a non-custodial experience without requiring users to manage private keys themselves—this has long been a significant barrier for many to participate in the crypto space. At the same time, OKX Pay incorporates an industry-leading compliance and risk control system.
On the compliance front, OKX Pay ensures the safety of users and assets through mechanisms such as real-name verification (KYC), anti-money laundering (AML), and multi-signature (Multisig). Additionally, without user authorization, OKX cannot access any funds arbitrarily.
If users forget their passwords, there is no need to worry; OKX Pay can recover through AA and ZK email functions, making it as convenient as resetting a bank account password to retrieve a wallet.
In terms of trading experience, OKX Pay relies on the X Layer public blockchain, with zero transaction costs. X Layer is OKX’s ZK-based layer two network built using Polygon’s CDK technology. From the day of launch, users will also be able to earn automatic returns on their held funds through the “Smart Earning” feature.
Building the Future
OKX Pay is far more than just a payment product; I firmly believe in its extraordinary potential and significance. OKX Pay and X Layer together build core infrastructure, and we believe that all financial institutions will need to offer non-custodial service versions that encompass payment and remittance functions in the future. Financial institutions will be able to develop and deploy dApps that allow their customers to use OKX Pay. As more and more people get accustomed to transacting with crypto assets, the demand for such services will inevitably surge.
We are fully prepared; OKX Pay offers a fast, efficient, compliant, and secure experience to meet this demand. In the future, all financial institutions will provide non-custodial services, including payment and remittance, under a compliance system. OKX Pay and X Layer are building the infrastructure for this future, and it is anticipated that hundreds of millions of people will embark on their crypto and Web3 journeys.
The crypto industry is accelerating towards the mainstream, and OKX Pay will be a significant driving force behind this transformation.
OKX Pay is currently not available in all jurisdictions.
OKX CEO Star: OKX Pay Will Become the Gateway for Hundreds of Millions of Users to Enter Web3
According to official news, OKX CEO Star announced at the Token2049 summit main venue in Dubai that OKX Pay has officially launched, stating that OKX Pay is the world’s first encrypted payment wallet with a complete compliance system embedded, supporting users to send and receive USDT and USDC instantly and securely on a global scale.
OKX Pay is built on an account abstraction (AA) architecture and ZK email technology, featuring mechanisms such as multi-signature, anti-money laundering (AML), password recovery, and achieving zero transaction fees on OKX’s self-developed ZK layer two network X Layer, while providing users with up to 5% annualized returns on USDT.
Star emphasized: “In the future, all financial institutions will offer some degree of non-custodial services in a compliant manner, covering scenarios such as payments and remittances. OKX Pay and X Layer are building the underlying infrastructure needed for this future, which will enable hundreds of millions of users to truly enter the crypto and Web3 world.”