Cryptocurrency exchange OKX has launched the OKX Money app, allowing users to convert more than 50 local currencies into US dollar-backed stablecoins as it expands beyond its core trading business.
The standalone service was unveiled at an OKX product event in Singapore and is aimed at users in emerging markets across Latin America, Africa, South Asia and the Middle East. The company said currency volatility, restricted access to banking and foreign exchange charges can make it difficult for people to protect their savings and spend internationally.
OKX Money will support three dollar-linked digital currencies: Paxos’s USDG, Circle’s USDC and Tether’s USDT.
OKX said eligible USDG balances could earn annual yields of up to 10 per cent. Customers will also be offered virtual and physical cards without foreign exchange mark-ups, along with referral rewards.
Haider Rafique, OKX’s global managing partner, said the central problem the service was intended to address was the speed and cost of settling payments.
“The key gap for people and institutions is settlement,” he said, arguing that small businesses should not have to wait days for payments to clear and that travellers should not have credit limits tied up by pending hotel deposits.
Rafique, who grew up in Pakistan, recalled his parents sending him money through Western Union and paying fees from their “hard-earned savings”.
He said crypto had a technological advantage over traditional financial services, describing it as “technologically more advanced than traditional finance, whether it’s money or markets”.
OKX expands its wider product offering
The OKX Money app is the latest in a series of launches by the exchange following a funding round in March involving Intercontinental Exchange, the owner of the New York Stock Exchange. The deal valued OKX at 25 billion dollars, although the size of the investment was not disclosed; Bloomberg reported it at about 20 million dollars.
On Sunday, a joint venture between OKX and ICE, co-chaired by former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission to launch a separate platform offering round-the-clock trading in more than 60 tokenised US shares.
OKX has also introduced an account-protection scheme called OKX Shield. It promises reimbursement of up to 100,000 dollars for standard users and up to 500,000 dollars for its highest tier of VIP customers if their accounts are taken over by a third party.
The scheme comes after crypto platforms lost an estimated 2.7 billion dollars to hacks this year, according to security firm CertiK. Rival exchange Bitget suffered an alleged theft of nearly 388 million dollars last month through a vulnerability in a third-party security product.
About 97 per cent of the global stablecoin market by value is linked to the US dollar. That dominance has attracted interest in Washington, where officials hope dollar-backed tokens will increase demand for US assets, while other economies examine alternatives.
Rafique said he would welcome an Asian competitor to dollar stablecoins, including a stablecoin pegged to the Singapore dollar, provided it offered sufficient stability for users to trust it.
He said the crypto industry was at an “inflection point”. While Bitcoin had recovered, liquidity in the altcoin market was “just not there”, with investors in emerging markets increasingly able to access US and energy markets as well as pre-IPO pricing.
