One Year of 'Don't Trust, Verify': Our Industry Leading Proof of Reserves

A message from OKX Chief Marketing Officer Haider Rafique

Today, we published our 12th Proof of Reserves. This marks twelve months of progress, during which we published hundreds of thousands of blockchain addresses, developed open-source tools and constantly improved our reporting long after media and eagle-eyed blockchain sleuths turned their attention to other stories.

Our latest Proof of Reserves shows that we hold USD$12.5 billion in BTC, ETH and USDT, which is 103% of user holdings. This can be verified on the blockchain by the general public by looking at OKX-controlled wallets, or by users themselves using zero-knowledge, open source tools we've made available - instructions on how to do this are here.

There is important context to our focus on Proof of Reserves that, one year on, deserves a closer look.

A year ago, the crypto world was in turmoil due to FTX's implosion, which was prompted by broken promises and misuse of customer funds. Trust and transparency was at an all-time low, and remaining market players were faced with the challenge of rebuilding.

For some crypto firms, the FTX collapse was an overdue sign to rethink risky aspects of their business. For us, it only vindicated our conservative, steady approach that had seen us through multiple bear markets since our founding in 2017.

We're a technology firm that aims to build the best crypto and Web3 infrastructure for users all over the world. We don't enter into vanity deals that stretch the resources on our balance sheet, and we've never been a trading firm. That's the first step.

The second step has been to lead the industry in product development, across our exchange business and Web3. Over the past year or so, we've invested in building the best Web3 wallet product on the market - the OKX Wallet - which empowers anyone to access the Web3 world easily.

The third step has been introducing ourselves and building understanding of our business to audiences around the world. We have gone through a period of brand transformation (from OKEx to OKX), brand awareness growth (What is OKX?) and building understanding our mission (Rewrite the System). We've made incredible progress over the past two years, amassing more than 50 million users and growing into one of the largest crypto firms in the world by many metrics.

This is all great. But none of it matters without the fundamental foundation of trust. That's why Proof of Reserves is so important. And crypto users agree - a survey we ran in August showed that 67% of respondents think that monthly Proof of Reserves is very important. In a world where consensus is hard to come by, that's a resounding endorsement.

I'd like to take this opportunity to encourage you, whether you're a user of OKX or not, to take a new look at our Proof of Reserves. Send your questions or ideas for improvement my way. Don't trust, but verify. And consider joining us as we set the standard for a crypto industry that builds and moves forward from a baseline of trust and transparency, always.