Author: Nancy, PANews
ETFs, tokenization, stablecoins, DATs… The crypto world is integrating with traditional finance at an unprecedented speed, with doors to mainstream markets being opened, and the outline of a new era of crypto finance is becoming increasingly clear. Meanwhile, with the improvement of infrastructure and the rapid prosperity of the ecosystem, the on-chain world is gathering more liquidity, not only releasing more imaginative space but also becoming a new battleground for capital.
In this evolution of market structure, the role of CEX (centralized exchanges) is no longer limited to being a "crypto entry point"; its competitive logic is upgrading from a singular trading experience to a more comprehensive service system. At the OKX Alphas Summit held in Singapore on September 30, OKX announced a series of product upgrades that not only showcased the exchange's exploration of differentiated paths but also released a strong signal that CeDeFi is becoming the main line of the future.
Notably, OKX CEO Star, as the opening guest, shared his latest views and strategic layout on innovations in crypto payments and future financial applications during the summit, particularly emphasizing that payments are returning to a peer-to-peer model, and stablecoins are expected to become the infrastructure for future payments, with OKX Pay aiming to become the liquidity center for stablecoins.
The Evolution of the Crypto Cycle Drives CEX Evolution Towards Capital Efficiency Competition Era
As the global crypto market gradually matures, the service model of exchanges is quietly changing. From merely matching liquidity in the past to now emphasizing capital efficiency, the focus of industry competition is shifting. The recent series of product layouts launched by OKX not only optimizes user experience but also reflects the development and evolution of the crypto cycle.
In terms of asset appreciation efficiency, OKX's Auto Earn feature provides users with a new way to enhance their funds. According to Thomas Tse, head of trading products at OKX, Auto Earn helps users automatically lend or stake idle assets in their trading accounts without affecting their assets used for collateral or trading margin, achieving dual goals of asset trading and appreciation. At the same time, users do not need to lock their assets and can overlay returns on existing trading strategies while maintaining low risk and high flexibility. Idle assets will automatically earn interest and remain liquid. Currently supported assets include USDT, USDC, USDG, as well as ETH and SOL, with annualized returns for different assets adjusted according to market fluctuations.
Compared to traditional CEX wealth management products, Auto Earn significantly enhances capital utilization efficiency. Previously, CEX wealth management functions typically required users to manually transfer funds, locking assets during the management period, limiting liquidity, and easily leading to idle funds or missed market opportunities. Meanwhile, DeFi has attracted a large number of users through staking and liquidity mining, but its high thresholds and risks deter many users. OKX's "trading is wealth management" concept cleverly bridges this gap, allowing CEX users to enjoy experiences similar to DeFi yield farms on a familiar platform, with simpler operations and more controllable risks. This model not only optimizes the dynamic allocation of funds but also provides users with a new choice that balances returns and liquidity.
For high-frequency traders and large-volume traders, OKX's VIP program directly addresses long-standing pain points such as high fees, idle funds, and slow customer service response. According to Bill Chan, head of VIP products, the VIP program operates on a membership model, offering tiered discounts: the larger the trading volume, the lower the fees; the larger the user scale and demand, the more exclusive services and opportunities enjoyed. After joining the VIP program, users can receive exclusive fee discounts, 24/7 priority customer service access, and a variety of value-added tools, such as BTC interest-earning products (with idle Bitcoin annualized returns up to 3%) and dual currency enhanced yield products. VIP users will also be invited to exclusive events, targeted rewards, and limited-edition merchandise, further enhancing user stickiness.
This product also reflects the upgrade of the CEX role. Early CEXs primarily catered to retail investors, emphasizing low costs and fast execution; now, as the global regulatory environment gradually improves and crypto assets are increasingly accepted by mainstream financial markets, institutional investors (such as hedge funds and family offices) are accelerating their entry, pushing the market towards a more mature and professional direction. OKX's VIP service lowers the entry threshold for institutional users, which is not only a business strategy but also a positive response to market maturation and regulatory evolution.
It can be said that the evolution of the crypto market is reshaping the positioning and functions of CEXs. For OKX, the launch of Auto Earn and the VIP program is a microcosm of its strategic upgrade, accelerating its transformation into a financial services hub.
Mining On-Chain Finance: Strategic Bets in the CeDeFi Era
As the boundaries between CeFi and DeFi gradually blur, CeDeFi is becoming an ideal bridge for traditional financial institutions to enter the crypto world and is expected to drive the large-scale adoption of crypto assets. In this trend, exchanges are no longer satisfied with merely providing basic trading and custody services but are actively expanding their on-chain ecosystem, from seamless on-chain entry construction to public chain ecological layout, all showing proactive moves towards the future on-chain financial landscape.
Taking OKX as an example, its ecological strategy clearly demonstrates the exchange's deep ambition for on-chain finance. At the OKX Alphas Summit, Thomas revealed for the first time that the OKX App will launch DEX trading features, allowing users to directly use their exchange account balances (USDT, USDC, or native tokens) to complete on-chain token transactions without switching wallets or cross-chain operations. Additionally, users can create self-custody wallets in seconds using Passkey and Face ID, significantly lowering the barriers to traditional on-chain operations. Moreover, the new DEX not only enhances trading execution speed and price efficiency but also integrates token discovery, market intelligence, and portfolio management tracking functions into a one-stop service. The first phase covers X Layer, Solana, Base, and BNB Chain, with plans to expand to Ethereum and more public chains in the future.
In terms of wallet ecology, OKX Wallet addresses issues of traditional wallets' single-chain support, fragmented operations, and security risks through a unified entry. According to Shawn Ma, head of OKX DEX aggregator products, OKX Wallet now supports over 140 blockchain networks, allowing users to complete token exchanges, cross-chain bridging, and dApp access on the same platform, covering millions of tokens, and enabling operations on mobile or web at any time. At the same time, it has established a strong defense in this crypto dark forest, with TEE (Trusted Execution Environment)-driven smart accounts designed for advanced on-chain trading, allowing private keys to be securely encapsulated in a hardware "black box" while enabling rapid execution of complex on-chain operations, covering automatic strategy execution, profit-taking, stop-loss, dollar-cost averaging (DCA), and on-chain copy trading.
Building a public chain is a core part of the exchange's CeDeFi strategy. In August of this year, OKX announced a strategic upgrade to its public chain X Layer, focusing on DeFi, payments, and RWA scenarios. According to X Layer Builder Felix Fan, the chain can currently support 5,000 TPS, and future upgrades are expected to reach 100,000 TPS, with transaction costs being nearly negligible, making small payments no longer constrained by high Gas fees. X Layer is fully compatible with EVM, continuing Ethereum's security and developer ecosystem, and deeply integrating with OKX Wallet to achieve full-chain management of deposits, earnings, and trading tools. If performance is the ticket to entry, then X Layer's differentiation lies in its ecological layout. Its application scenarios cover DeFi, yield-bearing stablecoins, instant on-chain payments, high-frequency trading, cross-border transfers, and real-world settlements, aiming to create a hub for trading, circulation, and wealth creation in the new financial era.
OKX has built a replicable practice model for CeDeFi through its on-chain layout. This is not only a defensive strategy but also a proactive bet—hoping to upgrade itself to a comprehensive crypto ecological entry, exploring more business and financial possibilities. From this perspective, CeDeFi is becoming a key variable in the competitive landscape of exchanges and may also become a key driver for the widespread adoption of crypto finance.
From Trading Tools to Financial Infrastructure: The Stablecoin Competition Enters the 2.0 Era
"The biggest achievements of the crypto industry in the past 12 to 13 years are, first, the globalization of Bitcoin, which has become one of the most successful digital assets globally; second, stablecoins, which currently have a total market value close to $300 billion and are expected to grow rapidly in the next one to two years," Star stated at the press conference.
He further explained from a historical perspective that throughout human history, payments have essentially always been peer-to-peer: from gold coins and silver coins to paper money, funds have always been controlled by individuals. However, in the digital age, money is held by financial institutions, and once an institution goes bankrupt, individuals often have to rely on limited insurance protection. The emergence of blockchain and stablecoins provides the possibility for payments to return to a "peer-to-peer," low-cost, and high-efficiency model. Especially in cross-border payments, stablecoins are expected to replace the current credit card fees of 1% to 3%, becoming the infrastructure for future payments. At the same time, with the development of multi-signature accounts, abstract accounts, and on-chain monitoring tools, stablecoin payments can ensure security and compliance while improving efficiency, likely accelerating their entry into everyday life in the coming years.
In fact, stablecoins have now evolved from mere trading tools into multifunctional financial assets, serving as the liquidity backbone of crypto finance and beginning to evolve into fundamental financial infrastructure in the real economy. The stablecoin 2.0 solution launched by OKX at the Alphas Summit aims to transform stablecoins from static value anchoring tools into dynamic financial assets and everyday currencies, pushing crypto assets into the global financial system.
For a long time, stablecoins have played a value anchoring role in crypto trading but have been limited in their ability to enter the real economy due to slow transfers, high failure rates, and expensive fees. In other words, while stablecoins are the "blood" of crypto finance, they struggle to become "universal currency" in the real world.
One long-standing issue with stablecoins is liquidity fragmentation. Stablecoins from different issuers are often siloed in their respective markets, leading to inefficiencies. According to Frank Zhang, head of trading products at OKX, the unified USD order book launched by OKX aggregates all compliant stablecoins into the same trading market, providing traders with the deepest liquidity, tightest bid-ask spreads, and smooth trading experiences, achieving a cash-like trading experience. This design not only brings deeper liquidity and tighter spreads for traders but also lowers the entry threshold for new stablecoin issuers, making large-scale and unified market possibilities feasible.
If yield generation and order book reconstruction represent an upgrade of stablecoins in the financial asset dimension, then payment scenarios bring them closer to the definition of currency. According to Sam Liu, head of OKX Pay products, the OKX card allows users to spend stablecoins at a 1:1 ratio, covering all merchants worldwide that accept Mastercard, starting in Brazil and planning to expand globally within 12 months. Users can directly use stablecoins to pay for coffee, shopping, or subscription services. The underlying OKX Pay is a non-custodial on-chain wallet that allows users to seamlessly send stablecoins through X Layer without copying addresses or paying extra Gas fees, supporting group transfers and QR code payments, and will also support mobile Tap to Pay in the future. This experience design aims to address the high fees and operational friction commonly found in traditional crypto payments, making stablecoins truly feasible for everyday payments.
This series of designs connects storage, investment, and consumption, indicating that stablecoins are no longer limited to exchange tools but are gradually growing into a complete financial closed loop covering both on-chain and off-chain. For OKX, this is not only an extension of the trading ecosystem but also a key part of its CeDeFi strategy. More importantly, the competitive logic of stablecoins is also changing; future competition will no longer be about "who has a larger issuance" but "who can land in more real-world scenarios."
Overall, OKX's current business layout clearly revolves around a "user-centered" approach, providing users with a more efficient, convenient, and secure financial experience from asset appreciation efficiency, on-chain ecological experience to stablecoin application scenarios. Behind this is the competitive logic of the second half of CEXs, which has upgraded from a singular trading experience to a comprehensive digital financial service competition. This is not only a strategic evolution of CEXs themselves but also an inevitable trend of the entire crypto financial ecosystem moving towards mainstream acceptance and maturity.
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