Interview: Tong, PANews
Written by: Weilin, PANews
In the wild realm of the on-chain world, the OKX Web3 wallet has transformed into a "on-chain compass" with its powerful feature of one-click management of multi-chain assets and a boundless experience across over a thousand DApps—lighting a friendly beacon for newcomers while forging an efficient tool for seasoned players. Although the OKX Web3 wallet suddenly halted due to regulatory pressures not long ago, it quickly returned to the on-chain battlefield with the new domain web3.okx.com, showcasing its strong resilience and adaptability.
At this year's Web3 Carnival, PANews interviewed Lennix Lai, the Global Chief Business Officer (CCO) of OKX. This crypto pioneer, who transitioned from a traditional financial trader, resonated deeply with the "mathematical beauty" of Bitcoin and joined the OKX Web3 wallet in 2017, leading the team from a small group of 20 to a global hub of over 500 people.
Facing the technical challenges and compliance explorations of the on-chain world, the OKX Web3 wallet continuously expands its boundaries, elevating it from an asset tool to a global on-chain infrastructure. In terms of user experience and ecosystem building, they are also committed to breaking down multi-chain barriers to provide users with a simple, secure, and compliant on-chain experience. This article will delve into the strategic evolution path of the OKX Web3 wallet, the cutting-edge practices of compliance exploration, the logic behind brand globalization, and his pragmatic advice for practitioners and entrepreneurs through the perspective of this executive at the forefront of crypto.
From Traditional Financial Trader to Crypto Executive: Captivated by the "Mathematical Beauty" of Bitcoin
Lennix is from Hong Kong and has a background in financial engineering. He currently serves as the Global Chief Business Officer (CCO) of OKX, primarily responsible for strategic partnerships and global regulation. He was a trader in the traditional financial industry and worked at companies like JP Morgan, AIG, and CASH before joining OKX Web3. In 2017, Lennix became one of the earliest core members of OKX Web3. In 2023, he was promoted to Global Chief Business Officer.
Recalling his motivation for entering the crypto industry, Lennix admitted, "About seven or eight years ago, I saw the Bitcoin white paper, and the math was very elegant, very beautiful, just two pages of A4 paper. I felt it had a bright future. At that time, OKX was just doing this."
At that time, Lennix decided to join OKX and led the transformation of the platform from a local exchange to a global platform. Lennix noted that Hong Kong and Singapore have a high degree of cultural and talent structural similarity. He pointed out that tech and product talents in Hong Kong and Singapore often have a solid financial background, excelling in their technical capabilities while also having experience in developing financial applications, which gives them a clear advantage in building exchanges, wallets, and risk control systems, demonstrating strong adaptability to multinational work environments.
The Next Challenge Focus is Compliance
A profound understanding of traditional finance has become an important foundation for Lennix to lead OKX Web3's in-depth development.
Lennix believes that the essence of finance has not changed when transitioning from the traditional financial industry to the Web3 industry. "The essence of finance is how to do the tools we use for transactions better. Lower user costs, faster transactions, and concepts like market makers—how to formulate market maker policies? Our risk control concepts include margin systems, and the standards for placing orders in risk control can all be applied to experiences from over a hundred years in the financial market. That's why there are so many people with financial backgrounds in the Web3 industry; they inherently understand these fundamental financial concepts, making it easier to align with them. Many of our product managers and risk control managers come from large banks."
In his view, traditional financial FinTech focuses more on digitizing existing service systems, while the development path of Web3 is closer to a "TechFin" model, where technology is the core driver, and finance is loaded as an application layer on top of blockchain infrastructure. This architecture may also expand to non-financial fields in the future, but at the current stage, finance remains the most active direction in Web3 applications.
Lennix pointed out that the essence of blockchain is low-cost, verifiable transfers and public ledgers, which makes it naturally suitable for financial scenarios. Blockchain technology has brought a qualitative leap to the underlying structure of finance, breaking down geographical and trust barriers and accelerating the globalization process. Therefore, financial applications are very easy to adapt to blockchain, and as we go deeper, there will be more financial application areas, ultimately serving Web2 enterprises like Social, Gaming, etc.
He emphasized that OKX Web3 is currently focused on decentralized applications (DApps) primarily based on finance. "We are a wallet, and we are also a multi-chain trading system. Behind us, we need to solve the problem of providing users with a one-stop Web3 access service for different multi-chains. Additionally, we are addressing the low-cost issue of transferring multi-chain assets, which is a very deep technical field. The next focus is how to achieve compliance within self-custody wallets; this is the barrier we need to challenge next."
Moving from Self-Custody Tools to a Multi-Chain Ecosystem, Product is the Core Gene
In terms of product vision, the OKX Web3 team has established two core directions: first, to create a simple and easy-to-use self-custody wallet solution; second, to promote the interactive experience of a multi-chain world.
Lennix believes that OKX Web3 is like a self-custody future. The team's primary goal is to create a self-custody wallet tool that everyone can easily manage their virtual assets; secondly, to build an open system compatible with a multi-chain ecosystem. In his view, a single public chain is unlikely to support all future applications, and the true trend of Web3 will be the coexistence of multiple chains. However, the multi-chain ecosystem also brings challenges such as complex user experiences, high transfer costs, and high operational risks.
Therefore, OKX Web3 aims to become a key entry point for users into the Web3 world, continuously optimizing the user experience through ongoing product innovation, ultimately allowing users to enjoy convenience and smoothness similar to Web2 when completing transactions and transfers in self-custody wallets.
He further stated, "This is our most important product strategy at present. Once the experience issues are resolved, the next stage of strategy will gradually expand from purely on-chain asset tools to compliance, banking channels, and fiat currency. Additionally, we need to find ways to discover various hotspots and emerging applications that may arise on-chain, and we must have enough sensitivity to support the development of the ecosystem."
He emphasized that products are the core gene of OKX Web3 and the most recognizable DNA of the team. The team is extremely focused on identifying and solving user pain points. "There are definitely many innovations in the market, and they themselves may not know whether they will succeed. So we will make the experience the best, and in the end, we will leave it to the ecosystem."
The User Groups of DEX and CEX are Gradually Diverging, Aiming to Upgrade to Compliant Infrastructure
With the continuous improvement of Web3 infrastructure, user demand for decentralized trading experiences is increasing. In 2024, the app downloads of OKX Web3 wallet grew by more than 100%, reaching 122%; global user growth was about nine times; and the daily trading volume of OKX DEX increased by 20 times.
Regarding the competition between CEX and DEX, Lennix also shared his views. He pointed out that the market's incremental growth is shifting from CEX to DEX, driven by two key factors. "One push is definitely that the development on-chain is faster, and there are more interesting things. The second push is that we are continuously optimizing the user experience on OKX Web3, significantly lowering the threshold for users to migrate from CEX to DEX, thus accelerating this process. I feel proud of this for our team."
On the market discussion about whether "DEX trading volume will fully exceed CEX," Lennix holds a relatively neutral view. He believes that while DEX trading volume is expected to exceed CEX in the future, the user groups served by the two will gradually diverge, each carrying different roles and functions. CEX is stricter in asset screening and regulation, closer to the "main board" role in the traditional financial system. Only after multiple rounds of approval and compliance review can quality assets be traded on CEX, making it more suitable for large funds and traditional institutions to participate directly with fiat currency. In contrast, the decentralized trading environment on-chain offers greater freedom, not limited to tokens, and may also carry various innovative applications. Over time, some quality projects will eventually be filtered and transferred to CEX platforms for trading.
"So, in terms of trading volume, DEX may indeed be higher, but we are more concerned about whether we can serve different groups of people at the same time: institutions, financial institutions, including future social security funds. There is also a lot of technical space in between to complete the bridging and transformation between the two."
Reflecting on the early days of the OKX Web3 wallet's establishment, Lennix further explained that the team initially did not plan to launch a wallet product; the original direction was to build on-chain analysis tools. However, over three years ago, the team gradually realized that the wallet, as the "entry point" to the on-chain world, would become a key strategic direction, thus concentrating resources in this area. Even though there was no clear business return model set initially, the team still insisted on developing the product as a pure tool, focusing on technical implementation and user experience.
Currently, the OKX Web3 wallet team has grown to 300 to 500 people. Lennix likened this experience to "Taobao doing Alibaba Cloud"—at first glance, it seems unrelated to the main business, but it harbors platform-level innovative potential.
"When we were looking for a second growth curve, we went through many twists and turns, and it felt the same as when Taobao suddenly wanted to do Alibaba Cloud. This is a completely different field, and initially, it does not benefit the main business. This pure investment also does not seem to have any place where this business model would feed back into the main business, but this innovation can only be discovered after it is done, and then we think about how to collaborate. Another point is that we need to follow the market. Wherever the market wants you to go, we respect the trend and go with the flow. We cannot predict the next trend, but as long as we determine that users are moving in that direction, we will firmly work on tools and products."
As the number of Web3 users continues to grow, OKX Web3 is also considering how to promote the development of on-chain infrastructure at a deeper level. Lennix stated that the OKX Web3 team is redefining the boundaries and roles of "wallets," no longer viewing them merely as tools for asset storage and transfer, but elevating them to compliant infrastructure in the on-chain world. He pointed out that as the crypto ecosystem continues to expand, issues related to data security, KYC, and anti-money laundering in on-chain exchanges are becoming increasingly prominent, and these issues urgently need to be addressed within a self-custody framework.
"For example, there are hackers on-chain now, and methods for illegal transfers and money laundering. Do we have a way to mark these hacker addresses? For instance, can we use AI data analysis to block these suspicious addresses at a faster speed, in less than a second, or even at a second-level speed? Rapid determination of a hacked address is the direction we need to think about for the future."
The Regulatory Challenges Behind the Suspension of DEX Aggregation Services
Recently, the OKX Web3 wallet experienced a minor incident, suspending DEX aggregation services due to MiCA regulatory requirements.
In this regard, Lennix stated, "We are explaining. The concept of self-custody is a completely new concept for regulation, so our team needs to spend some time on this. It requires a process, much like when we established the exchange years ago, which also took years of in-depth discussions with regulators about what an exchange is and how it operates. We are very willing to do this because it is something we can do, and the issues are not significant. We have separated the exchange and the wallet app, while simultaneously informing EU regulators that this is a completely self-custody wallet, and under this premise, we can achieve compliance and meet regulatory expectations. Although regulators may not currently have regulations for a Web3 wallet, they certainly have expectations for some large participants, compliance, and licensing. Our expectation is to create better tools that meet regulatory needs."
Lennix admitted that the OKX Web3 wallet is at the forefront of the industry, exploring a path that also provides a reference for many other peer institutions. "We do not have a ready-made playbook to copy; we cannot face this situation. To be honest, although there are tools on the market, including on-chain asset management tools and tools for identifying hacked addresses, there is not enough efficiency and technical foundation to meet regulatory expectations. Therefore, we are likely to have to develop our own and establish our own on-chain KYC standard system. These are areas we have never ventured into before, and they are both crisis areas and challenges."
Marketing Philosophy Aligned with Brand DNA
In addition to continuously advancing compliance arrangements, OKX is also at the forefront of brand marketing in the industry. Lennix stated that the team's performance in market promotion is particularly outstanding, achieving a series of high-quality collaborations, including the Shanghai F1 race.
When discussing OKX's philosophy in marketing collaborations, Lennix mentioned that he sees himself more as a "gatekeeper," with truly excellent execution coming from the entire market team. He emphasized that OKX does not merely pursue exposure when selecting partners but places greater importance on the consistency of brand tone.
"First of all, we hope that a brand sponsorship can elevate the brand tone of the OKX Web3 wallet itself, but at the same time, we need to choose an industry. This industry is best if it involves sports, is global, has a large grassroots base, and is technology-driven, aligning with our pursuit of innovation in brand tone. Ultimately, we found McLaren and Manchester City. Their company management, team management, and pursuit of excellence resonate very well with us. For example, we pursue response times of tens or hundreds of milliseconds in the exchange field, while they also mention '300 milliseconds' in racing data transmission. For them, 500 milliseconds can determine an overtaking maneuver or an accident. This extreme pursuit of efficiency and precision is actually in line with our technical culture. Therefore, we believe we have found a very good partner, a long-term, genetically aligned collaborator, where our language is mutual and our values are consistent."
Practitioners Need to Understand Products and Users; Bitcoin is Unlikely to Experience a Strong Surge in the Short Term
At the end of the interview, Lennix offered his experiences and advice to the new generation of Web3 practitioners. He stated that young BD professionals born in the 2000s should break free from the inertia of "just attending conferences and networking" and instead gain a deeper understanding of product logic, user pain points, and industry challenges. He emphasized that BD should not only be executors of market expansion but should also become bridges connecting users, products, and markets. By engaging in dialogue with users, collecting feedback, and conveying valuable opinions to the product team, BD can truly play a role. The core supporting this is still professionalism—a profound understanding of the industry, products, and technological trends is the strongest moat for young BDs.
For Web3 entrepreneurs, Lennix advised abandoning the traditional mindset of "issuing tokens equals projects" and focusing on product development during bear markets. He emphasized that the entrepreneurial logic now differs from the past; what is truly valuable are products that are grounded and recognized by users. Compared to infrastructure, the current focus should be on innovations at the application layer, especially in exploring real financial directions such as on-chain compliance, on-chain identity verification (KYC), and stablecoins.
Additionally, when discussing the macro market environment, Lennix pointed out that the crypto market is still dominated by Bitcoin, with its market share continuing to rise and being highly correlated with U.S. macro policies. Due to multiple uncertainties such as tariff policies, interest rate changes, and inflation expectations, market volatility has significantly increased. He believes that Bitcoin is unlikely to experience a strong surge in the short term, and traders should maintain a defensive posture while paying attention to tariff negotiation progress and key economic data, such as CPI, as signals for market direction.
Disclaimer:
This article is for reference only. It is not intended to provide (i) investment advice or recommendations, (ii) offers, solicitations, or inducements to buy, sell, or hold digital assets, or (iii) financial, accounting, legal, or tax advice. Digital assets (including stablecoins and NFTs) are subject to market fluctuations, involve high risks, and may depreciate. For questions regarding whether trading or holding digital assets is suitable for you, please consult your legal/tax/investment professionals. The OKX Web3 wallet is merely a self-custody wallet software service that allows you to discover and interact with third-party platforms; the OKX Web3 wallet cannot control the services of such third-party platforms and assumes no responsibility for them. Not all products are available in all regions. You are responsible for understanding and complying with applicable local laws and regulations. The OKX Web3 wallet and its related services are not provided by the OKX exchange and are subject to the terms of service of the OKX Web3 ecosystem.
免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。
