Crypto exchange OKEx launches real-time settlements

OKEx, a cryptocurrency exchange specialized in financial derivatives, has launched real-time settlements for its perpetual swaps, futures and options contracts.

According to a Dec. 29 announcement, OKEx said that real-time derivative contract settlement will allow the exchange’s users to withdraw their funds at any time. The announcement claims that the new feature “will provide a better trading experience for users, improve the capital efficiency of their funds and enable greater cross-exchange arbitrage opportunities.” The firm’s head of financial markets, Lennix Lai, explained:

“This is hugely beneficial to traders carrying out cross-exchange arbitrage, as they need to settle their profit in real-time across exchanges.”

He added that the move “will also enhance capital management across the OKEx platform.”

Real-time settlements began at 3:00 a.m. this morning, on the firm’s perpetual swap contract tracing the Cardano (ADA) dollar price. The new feature will also launch on other OKEx’ derivatives over the following months. When implemented, the derivatives will see the average open price of the position changed to the settlement base price of the last settlement.

For a while, OKEx had been the top cryptocurrency derivative exchange when it comes to futures daily trading volumes. Still, crypto market data service Skew shows that this is no longer the case, and both Binance and Huobi have overtaken the platform when it comes to this metric.

While the competitors have set the ground by heavily investing in their derivative products’ development, OKEx cemented its loss of the top spot by recently losing much of its user base’s trust. In mid-October, the exchange suspended crypto asset withdrawals from the platform because a private key-holder was cooperating with legal authorities on an investigation.

It took six weeks for OKEx to finally allow its users to withdraw their crypto from the platform. As one would expect, it saw a big exodus of liquidity from its cryptocurrency wallets as soon as it allowed customers to move their assets, with $47 million of Bitcoin leaving the company in one single block on its blockchain.