Original | Odaily Planet Daily ( @OdailyChina )
Author: Golem ( @web3_golem )
During the 2025 Web3 Carnival, Odaily had the honor of having a conversation with Lennix, Global Chief Business Officer of OKX, to discuss topics such as the future product development direction of the OKX Web3 wallet, Web3 wallet supervision, and future market trends.
Lennix pointed out in the conversation that the future development direction of OKX Web3 wallet is still self-custody, multi-chain and compliance, and will establish an on-chain identity system to ensure user security. At the same time, he also responded to questions such as when the OKX Web3 wallet transaction aggregator will be restarted and why the new version of the wallet hides the inscription market entrance.
For the sake of clarity, Odaily Planet Daily has summarized the interview questions and answers as follows. Enjoy~
Odaily: Attending the Web3 Carnival this time, did you feel any changes in the industry atmosphere or trends? At the current stage, are you more concerned about those Web3 tracks that are connected to the real world and have practical application value?
Lennix: My biggest feeling is that more and more Web2 and Web3 companies involved in crypto business are moving towards compliance, such as banks, funds, and some companies involved in the payment field. So maybe in the future Hong Kong will slowly become a compliant Web3 center, allowing companies from many industries to participate.
In fact, the track that I am most interested in is the application of Web3 in the payment field, namely PayFi. In this field, OKX Web3 wallet is doing well. I think wallets should have the function of supporting global payments. In the future, OKX wallet also plans to work in this direction, so that users can seamlessly interact in the real world and the Crypto world. This function is simple to say, but it is difficult to implement in practice. Because in this process we must contact Web2 companies, such as banks, payment companies, card issuers, and companies that issue RWA assets, etc. Therefore, I think PayFi should be the next important entrance to attract traditional industries to enter Crypto, so I will pay attention to the development of this field and related companies.
Odaily: Then lets talk about OKX Web3 wallet in detail. Now the integration of CeFi and DeFi has become a new trend, but the routes taken by each party are different. For example, some support the direct purchase of on-chain assets on exchanges, but the route taken by OKX is more like separating the exchange business from the Web3 business. For example, the OKX Web3 wallet has enabled a new domain name and developed an independent APP. What strategic considerations are behind this de-exchange adjustment?
Lennix: The core reason is that we believe that self-custody is the future of Web3. OKX Web3 wallet has two important development directions. The first is self-custody, which gives users 100% rights to manage their own assets on the chain. OKX does not directly participate in the custody of user assets. The other is multi-chain. OKX Web3 wallet hopes to use a decentralized approach to support users in multi-chain transactions and asset transfers. At the same time, in the process of realizing these functions, we also use technical means to keep risks under control.
So we don’t want to be a “comprador” where users give their assets directly to us and then we help them to buy and sell them. This does not fit in with the positioning of our product.
There are two reasons for separating the exchange business from the Web3 business. The first is that we insist that the OKX Web3 wallet is a purely technical product, so that we can maintain an open and cooperative attitude and cooperate with other ecosystems or empower all on-chain assets. The second is that considering the requirements of future compliance, users have 100% control over their own on-chain assets, which can also meet some compliance requirements.
Odaily: On March 17, OKX Web3 wallet shut down its aggregator trading service. When will it be reopened? Is it true that the rumor that it was shut down was due to an investigation by EU regulators?
Lennix: It will take some time for the DEX aggregator trading service to restart, but it will be soon. As for the main reason for shutting down the aggregator, in the context of actively combating financial crimes, we did encounter targeted public opinion attacks, but this did not affect our enthusiasm. In response to these challenges, OKX Web3 took the initiative to suspend the DEX aggregator service after consulting with regulators, aiming to prevent further abuse through technical upgrades.
Odaily: OKX Web3 Wallet is recognized as the best wallet team in the industry and can always respond quickly to user needs. However, there are always problems such as MEV attacks and Rug Pul on the chain. How does OKX Web3 Wallet help users prevent these risks?
Lennix: Because the OKX Web3 wallet is self-custodial, we cannot take too many proactive actions like CEX, such as delisting tokens, freezing assets, etc. But we have the ability to monitor on the chain in real time, can identify black addresses as quickly as possible, and reduce their ability to trade in the wallet, so as to provide users with early prevention.
In the future, we will also score some projects based on on-chain monitoring and analysis. The technology involved has not been developed before the OKX Web3 wallet, so our team needs to develop this technology ourselves and then develop in this direction.
Odaily: How do you view the decline of the Meme craze from last year to now? Is it possible for the Meme market to rise in the future? At the same time, what role does OKX want to play in the Meme craze?
Lennix: I think the crypto industry will continue to generate a lot of hot spots, and each hot narrative will go through a process of ups and downs, whether it is an inscription or a meme. Meme will exist forever as a major asset class, but the number of top memes will decrease because the markets sensitivity to memes has decreased, and not just any news hot spot can become a popular meme.
As for OKX Web3 wallet, we are always just a tool. Meme is an asset that needs to be supported, but there are other assets on the chain. The product form for us is the same, that is, how to help users quickly buy and sell assets at the lowest cost, but the specific implementation methods are different. For some mainstream assets, users may be more sensitive to price differences, fees and liquidity, but the characteristic of Meme is that the cycle rises and falls quickly. The biggest requirement of users when trading Meme is fast speed and relatively weak perception of cost, so we need to balance these two sides. The ordering method and order mode of OKX Web3 wallet in the field of Meme trading are different.
The product idea of OKX Web3 Wallet has always been to try to meet as many user needs as possible while resources are controllable. Ordinals is a good example. Before we supported it, we actually did not expect it to become a hot spot in the market, but we believed that if users have demand, we should support it. So the result became that Casey and others came up with a protocol, but the main market promoter became OKX Web3 Wallet, because we have achieved the ultimate user experience.
We will repeat this action in the future. We do not judge whether any hot spots in the market are important or not, but as long as they are new technologies, we should support them. As long as there is a little innovation, we should also support it.
Odaily: You just talked about inscriptions, but after the App version was updated on March 28, the wallet merged the entrance to the inscription market into the NFT market, which caused dissatisfaction among some inscription players. What considerations are behind this product design?
Lennix: Actually, it is because of the changes in user data behind it. The page resources of the product are limited, so we made such an adjustment based on the overall user data of the market. Of course, we also took the voice of the community into consideration, but the product always needs to have a priority, so we will definitely continue to pay attention to the feedback of the community and then find a balance between them.
Odaily: So what are the important regulatory risks faced by Web3 wallet products? How will OKX Web3 seek cooperation with regulators?
Lennix: First of all, this is something very new for regulators. The concept of self-custody alone is very difficult for global regulators to understand, so there is currently no complete regulatory framework for Web3 wallets. But we have encountered similar challenges before. The exchanges themselves were not understood at the beginning. After years of communication and efforts from all parties, the situation has improved. This is not only due to OKXs investment, but also other crypto industry practitioners who have continuously explained to regulators in various countries how crypto exchanges operate and are managed, and what the derivatives risk control policies of the exchanges are. Therefore, exchanges can now obtain compliance licenses.
Then I believe that the regulation of wallets also goes through the same path. We need to explain and show regulators what a wallet is. At the same time, the OKX Web3 wallet itself must overcome some technical difficulties, such as how to meet compliance requirements and standards while maintaining self-custody. For example, through a real-time on-chain monitoring system, black addresses can be reviewed in advance at a speed of seconds; without disclosing user information, the on-chain KYC requirements can be met, so that some wallet addresses that have passed KYC can have higher transaction permissions. These are the key development directions of the Web3 wallet industry in the future, and they are also the directions we want to lead the OKX Web3 wallet.
Odaily: What are the requirements for users of on-chain KYC?
Lennix: On-chain KYC is different from exchange KYC. This term itself may cause ambiguity. A better term should be on-chain identity, which records the users past transaction history on the chain. In the future, the OKX Web3 wallet may classify different addresses according to risk, which may involve analyzing whether the address is completely clean from past transaction history, whether it has participated in some suspicious transactions, what the transaction pattern of the address is, etc.
This also means that we don’t need to obtain the user’s real identity information, while also ensuring that the user’s addresses are safe and clean.
Odaily: What will be the focus of OKX Web3 after Q2 this year?
Lennix: In general, we will continue to support multi-chain and self-custody, and we will also update social recovery and other functions to make the user experience better. We will also continue to develop DEX to achieve faster speed and lower cost. But the most important thing is to continue to explore compliance, including how to implement anti-money laundering requirements on the chain.
Odaily: Trumps recent tariff policy has caused dramatic fluctuations in the global capital market, including the global stock market and the crypto market. Some people believe that we have entered a bear market. How do you view the market situation in the future?
Lennix: The macro environment has a huge impact on Bitcoin, and Trumps series of policies have increased market uncertainty. So the panic selling in the market before was mainly due to the lack of understanding of the impact of tariff policies on inflation and global trade.
But Trumps tariff policy actually has room for maneuver, so every negotiation he makes on tariffs, I think, is likely to turn into a positive, and most of it will still support the rise of Bitcoin. I am also a Bitcoinist, and I entered the crypto industry largely because I admire the simple beauty and concept of Bitcoin technology.
