OKB's story traces back to OKCoin, founded in 2013 by Chinese tech entrepreneur Mingxing “Star” Xu — one of China's earliest Bitcoin trading platforms. In 2017, Xu expanded globally, launching OKEx (now OKX), a Malta-based exchange focused on crypto-to-crypto trading, algorithmic trading APIs, and options trading.
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The OKB token was announced in late 2017 and launched on March 22, 2018, as an ERC-20 token on Ethereum.
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There was no ICO or public token sale — OKB was distributed to OKX users as a loyalty reward and through marketing campaigns. Announced total supply was 1 billion tokens, of which initially only 300–600 million entered circulation, with the remainder locked for 1–3 years.
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May 4, 2019: a buyback-and-burn program launches — 30% of OKX's spot trading fee revenue is used to repurchase OKB on the open market and burn it quarterly.
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June 2019: OKB migrates to OKExChain, OKX's own in-house-developed blockchain.
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2020: governance features are introduced — OKB holders can vote on platform decisions.
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2021: OKEx rebrands as OKX.
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Sep 11, 2023: the 21st burn event concludes, with 70+ million OKB burned cumulatively since the program began.
OKB follows the same pattern as BNB, LEO, and Cronos: an exchange company built a deflationary token funded by its trading fee revenue, which over time became a central element of its entire ecosystem (launchpad, DeFi, its own blockchain).