Original｜Odaily Planet Daily ( @OdailyChina )
Author: Wenser ( @wenser 2010 )
On March 17, OKX officially announced that DEX aggregator trading services have been suspended, and other Web3 wallet services can still be used normally. User funds are not affected in any way. As soon as the news came out, there were many voices in the market who lamented: The OKX wallet has a very good user experience, but it was restricted because of the Bybit hacker money laundering case. Its so unfair. On the one hand, there is the aggressiveness of regulatory agencies such as centralized governments; on the other hand, there is the natural anonymity of decentralized transactions. OKX was caught in a dilemma for a while.
At the same time, Binance recently announced the launch of Binance Alpha 2.0, which will facilitate the purchase of Binance Alpha-related on-chain tokens with Binance main site liquidity, further bridging the gap between CEX and DEX transactions.
Suddenly, the battle for liquidity between CEX and DEX has quietly begun, and the subsequent direction of the industry has also begun to emerge. In this article, Odaily Planet Daily will sort out and discuss the suspension of OKX DEX aggregator trading services, the new development path of CEX, and the possibility of a new CDEX for readers reference.
OKX DEX development encounters regulatory risks: Aggregator services suspended, did Bybit file a complaint? No!
In February this year, OKX announced that it had officially become one of the first (and only two, the other being Crypto.com) crypto exchanges to obtain the European MiCA (Market in Crypto Assets Regulation) license, providing compliant, localized cryptocurrency services to more than 400 million users in 28 countries in the European Economic Area (EEA). It is worth noting that major exchanges including Binance, Bybit, and Kraken are still in the process of applying.
Surprisingly, the benefits of obtaining a compliance license have not yet been enjoyed, and the first thing that comes first is regulatory pressure.
On March 11, Bloomberg reported that at a meeting hosted by the Standing Committee on Digital Finance of the European Securities and Markets Authority on March 6, the European Securities and Markets Authority ( ESMA , Odaily Planet Daily Note: It is understood that the department can only directly supervise credit rating agencies and transaction databases, and only accept complaints about these two objects. It has no power to investigate foreign exchange dealers or other financial companies, or handle related complaints ) is reviewing OKXs Web3 service for allegedly providing money laundering channels for Bybit hacker funds. In addition, Bloomberg pointed out that the cause of this incident may be that Bybit claimed that hackers laundered about $100 million in stolen cryptocurrencies through the OKX Web3 platform.
Subsequently, in response to this false news, OKX’s CEO, president, and CMO responded to the matter respectively:
OKX CEO Star said in a post that OKX DEX is a DEX aggregator, and Bloombergs previous report was incorrect and misleading. In fact, Bybit used OKXs wallet/DEX API to build its own Web3 wallet and DEX foundation. After the Bybit hacking incident, the OKX law enforcement response team and legal team communicated directly with the Bybit legal team and provided a series of assistance such as freezing funds and tracking funds.
OKX President Hong could not hide his disappointment in his post , saying that the OKX team provided help but was slandered due to false information and that someone was trying to create panic.
OKX CMO Haider emphasized in a post : “We have frozen the funds flowing to our CEX and launched new features to detect/block hacker addresses from using our DEX or wallet services.”
Just when market users were confused and could not figure out whether Bybit sued OKX to European regulators or OKXs kindness was taken for granted, Bybit co-founder and CEO Ben Zhou officially responded to the statement of OKX CEO Star:
He stressed that it was obvious that there were many misunderstandings. Bybit did not provide any statement to Bloomberg. The according to Bybits statement mentioned by Bloomberg was probably taken from the white hat bounty website ( http://Lazarusbounty.com ) specially set up by Bybit for the theft case . The website shows all the cross-chain bridges used by hackers to launder money. When the funds flowed to the OKX Web3 agent, OKXs Web3 wallet team responded quickly and provided assistance in tracking the funds.
Thus, the truth is revealed - Bloomberg only unilaterally quoted the on-chain data information of the Bybit bounty website, but did not investigate the actual flow of stolen funds, and did not expect that OKX was actually a righteous partner in helping Bybit track down the stolen funds. We have also introduced this in detail in our previous article Bull Market Black Swan: Bybit Stolen Over $1.5 Billion in Assets, 514,000 ETH Directly Dumped into the Market?
On March 17, OKX officially released an announcement reiterating the platforms stance against financial crime. At the same time, after consulting with regulators, OKX took the initiative to temporarily suspend DEX aggregator services to implement additional upgrades and prevent further abuse of platform functions. In addition, OKX is also working closely with blockchain browsers to correct incomplete labels. Our goal is to ensure that browsers correctly highlight actual DEX processing transactions, rather than mistakenly identifying our aggregators as trading points.
On March 19, according to the official announcement , OKX Web3 Wallet announced the official launch of the new domain name web3.okx.com, which serves as the entry point for users to participate in OKX Web3 related products and decentralized services (including OKX DEX, search and earn coins, discovery section, OKX market and developer center services) on the web. Industry insiders believe that this move may be a necessary action to further separate OKX Exchange and Web3 business.
Combined with OKX CEO Stars previous remarks that OKX DEX aggregator will not touch or store user private keys, nor will it host user funds. The role of OKX Web3 business in the blockchain industry is similar to Chrome and Google in the Internet industry, focusing on providing software and services, OKX is determined to firmly implement the two development routes of compliance supervision and on-chain entry.
So, the next question arises: What are the main directions of CEXs future development?
New path for CEX development: either be a casino or be on-chain
In my opinion, there are only two new paths for the development of CEX:
One is to be a blockchain casino that is more wild and less regulated than the Web2 field, with currency, contracts, high liquidity and rapid response mechanism as the core. The business model of this path will gradually approach DEX, relying on handling fees to gain a foothold and attract gamblers and gold diggers. This is also the route taken by Hyperliquid, the L1 public chain that focuses on Binance on the chain;
The second is to be the on-chain entrance to the blockchain world, just like the former Internet information highway, using the chain as an entry point to attract more new users through channels such as Meme, PayFi, RWA (RWAFi), and as OKX CEO Star mentioned, it will gradually become an indispensable infrastructure construction in the crypto world, becoming the Google, Amazon, Chrome and other Internet companies, cloud computing companies, and browser entrances on the blockchain.
The risk of the former is that the increasingly tightening regulatory network is watching closely. At present, due to the relatively limited overall cryptocurrency market, the main energy and experience are not spent here. In the future, governments and even different independent regulatory agencies may regard various exchanges as fat meat and want to get a piece of the pie.
The risk of the latter is that on the one hand, it needs to dance on the edge of a knife with compliance institutions, and on the other hand, it needs to gradually verify whether its own PMF can truly become a bridge between the crypto world and the traditional financial market, and whether it can meet the real needs of tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of real users, rather than being regarded as a historical detour like the Internet bubble in the early 21st century and gradually squeezed out of this not-a-vacuum financial space.
Compared with the former, the latter is undoubtedly more difficult, but compared with the former, the upper limit is higher and the return is more generous, but it is extremely challenging for the development progress of AI, Meme coins, payment channels, and real-world asset chain. After all, infrastructure construction serves the emerging real needs.
CDEX prototype takes shape: It is difficult to face DEX competition without being a CEX on the chain
It is worth mentioning that the recent frequent appearances of CZ and He Yi have not only driven the Meme coin craze of the BSC ecosystem, which has gradually attracted a lot of attention and liquidity, but also further exposed the development difficulties of CEX to more people:
On the one hand, the ebb and flow of on-chain meme coins (including all tokens without actual use cases in a broad sense, such as AI Agent, Desci, PolitiFi and other conceptual tokens) have gradually become the main component of the cryptocurrency market in addition to ETFs, BTC and mainstream coins including ETH. As a result, liquidity has been divided into two, one on CEX and the other on DEX.
On the other hand, the liquidity of CEX is also experiencing a new round of circulation in the ups and downs of the industry. Old coins such as EOS, XRP, and ADA are gradually becoming the amusement park for contract players. Liquidity is becoming increasingly tight. Even with the influence of various expectations, favorable, and policy news, it is an indisputable fact that fewer and fewer people are paying attention. New players, whether they enter the crypto circle through Ethereum ecological Meme coins such as PEPE and MOODENG or Solana ecological Meme coins such as BOME and TRUMP, gradually regard CEX as the destination for liquidity exit, and CEXs have to attract new players to enter, old players to stay, and contract players to convert through waves of new coin listings. To some extent, Meme coins on CEX are becoming a sickle that cuts their own lifeline. More and more people no longer use CEX exchanges, and instead complete their full life cycle of cryptocurrency trading through DEX.
“Not knowing about Little Fox Wallet, and not using exchange platforms such as Binance, OKX, and Bybit” may be becoming a major industry trend.
CDEX, which integrates CEX liquidity pool and DEX trading efficiency, may become the next version answer.
In contrast, the size of the cryptocurrency population has gradually peaked.
According to Triple-As research, the number of global cryptocurrency holders is expected to reach 562 million in 2024, accounting for 6.8% of the worlds population; in addition, according to Crypto.coms estimates in June 2024, the number of global cryptocurrency owners is approximately 617 million, but according to the 2024 Cryptocurrency Development Report previously released by a16z, the number of global active crypto users per month is only about 30 million to 60 million.
It is obvious that the cryptocurrency market, just like Chinas mobile Internet in 2018, has entered the second half - the remaining market is either restricted by economic conditions and unable to cross various industry thresholds to enter the cryptocurrency market; or is constrained by subjective and objective conditions such as regulatory restrictions and cognitive limitations and has no intention of participating in cryptocurrency transactions.
As the industry enters deep waters, it can only gradually increase penetration through slow work to achieve the global expansion of cryptocurrency.
Behind this are tens of trillions of liquid assets and real estate in the real world.
Conclusion: Everything for liquidity, everything for liquidity
Once upon a time, the emergence of BTC broke the authoritarian governments rule over the right to mint coins and placed it in the hands of every ordinary individual for the first time. In my eyes, Satoshi Nakamoto is a bit like Prometheus who stole fire and gave it to mortals. With the gradual development of the cryptocurrency industry, the US dollar has once again won the title of industry anchor with the help of various stablecoins.
In the development process of various public chain projects, infrastructure projects, protocol projects, and application projects, everything is the process and result of liquidity circulation. Asset issuance is just a form of wealth redistribution, and asset distribution is just a form of buying and selling transactions. The final destinations of all assets are only two: one is the digital gold BTC, which is eternal, constant in quantity, and can be divided again; the other is various fiat currencies including the US dollar, which is guaranteed by the authoritarian power of the US government.
In 2025, perhaps we should start from scratch and think about the original propositions of BTC:
Who will protect your monetary rights? Is it the blockchain key, or the law of the authoritarian government? Is it the rules of the commercial platform, or the freedom of egoism?
