OKEx’s Native Token Now Listed by Its Largest Competitor

One of the best digital currency exchanges in the industry, Bitfinex, has made a surprising and somewhat controversial move by listing the native token of its competitor, OKEx. In fact, the announcement came from OKEx itself only yesterday, June 12th. In it, the world’s second largest cryptocurrency exchanges by monthly trading volume stated that Bitfinex would add OKB to its list of supported cryptocurrencies.

The token, OKB, served as OKEx’s native cryptocurrency since its launch back in April 2018. Earlier this year, in April, the exchange made another interesting reveal by announcing that they did not launch their token on any blockchain for a particular reason. The reason os the fact that they were secretly developing their own blockchain, known as OKChain.

But, the exchange’s community eventually lost their patience, and the huge demand eventually led the exchange to launch their token on Ethereum’s network. Since then, the token has released 300 million units in circulation.

OKChain expected to see launch before the year ends

Meanwhile, the development and construction of the exchange’s blockchain continued, and it appears that it might be approaching its launch. The exchange announced that OKChain is currently in the final testing stage, with the official MainNet launch expected to arrive before the year ends. Obviously, this only reveals that the launch will be in the second part of 2019, but there were no hints regarding the precise date of the launch, or even the month when it might arrive.

As usual in these situations, the launch will be followed by a token swap, when ERC-20 OKB will migrate to its own blockchain, and burn the rest of the coins that remain on Ethereum’s network. Following the migration, OKB will have a few use cases, such as the fees settlement, as well as the dApp development on the exchange’s blockchain.

At the moment, the token only allows users to perform a few tasks, like setting up an OKEx partner exchange, subscribing for new tokens on the exchange’s token launch platform, and settling trading fees. The exchange’s executives commented on the soon arrival on the blockchain, with OKEx’s Head of Operations, Andy Cheung, saying that the goal is to foster a new economy with blockchain tech. He also mentioned that the exchange does not believe that the solution lies in operating alone.

For that reason, OKEx joined up with numerous other industry leaders, in hopes of reaching long-lasting partnerships. He added that OKB’s listing on Bitfinex is only a start. Even so, it is an important development, as it shows that other exchanges have recognized OKEx’s native token. In the future, the exchange aims to keep exploring new opportunities in different collaborations with other like-minded partners.