OKCoin Adds New Trading Tools, Features in Bid to Lead Market

Things are moving fast at OKCoin. The Beijing-based Bitcoin exchange launched its international exchange website OKCoin.com in July, bidding on the wider global market.

Following its expansion plan, the exchange has seen multiple initiatives to strengthen its position as one of the leading exchanges and build its way to become one of the most prominent Bitcoin businesses in the world.

OKCoin's most recent achievement consists of a series of trading tools targeted at advanced traders. These tools include a new full-screen trading page designed to be intuitive and convenient. "We kept it really simple, but kept everything [a trader would] need to see as well," explained Zane Tackett, manager of international operations at OKCoin.

"It's kind of our first UE/UI user-friendly [tool] we've done. So far we were mostly focusing on the product, not polishing it. Now we feel we have the best products, with futures, algorithm trading tools, on spot trading."

Introduced in early August, futures trading emerged from an increasing demand from users, explained Tackett. The exchange uses an index to avoid price manipulation, which corresponds to the average weight of the 6 largest exchanges in the world: OKCoin.cn, BTCChina, Huobi, Bitstamp, BitFinex and itBit.

The company said it was not "set on doing it one-way," adding that its team was open to users' suggestions. In line with this philosophy, OKCoin revealed that peer-to-peer trading has been added to OKCoin.com, due to the "insane demand for lending." "We are always having people asking 'When will OKCoin.com open up lending?' and we've got quite a long waiting list on [OKCoin.cn]," explained Tackett.  

He added: "We are bringing peer-to-peer trading on OKCoin.com. In the past, OKCoin.cn was peer-to-peer trading, and OKCoin.com was futures. Now, OKCoin.com has futures and peer-to-peer trading, so you'll be able to loan USD or Bitcoin, you'll be able to borrow USD or Bitcoin, and users will be afforded 2.2 to 3 times leverage depending on what VIP level they are."

While OKCoin's user base mostly consists of Chinese customers, the company said its foreign user base was growing exponentially, "especially since futures have gone out." The company recently added additional language support and users can now contact OKCoin in 5 different languages including Spanish, Russian, English, Chinese and Cantonese.

"We are always looking to expand. When I started in April, we were 60 people almost, and now we are about a 150 today. And all day we see people coming to our office for interviews. We're definitely trying to hire strong people, especially developers."

To make its way into the international market, OKCoin is pushing harder on marketing and increasing its appearance at Bitcoin events.

Last week, the company made a bold move when taking over the management for one of the most visible Bitcoin websites, Bitcoin.com. While few explanations have surfaced about the event, Tackett cleared the air:

"I think that a lot of people are worried that it's going to be very bias, now that an exchange owns it. Blockchain.info was running it before. [...] Our goals are going to be spreading information and to bring more awareness to the populace about Bitcoin, to share Bitcoin knowledge. It's not going to be a promotion or anything like that."

According to him, this decision is another step showing that the company is trying to get into the international market. "Having one of the biggest sites on Bitcoin definitely shows that we're dedicated to the international market," he said, adding, "We really want to be one of the leading Bitcoin companies in the world."

Tackett further revealed the company had released its own block explorer a few weeks previously. The product is still under development and the team is currently working on improving it. "This is only the beginning," he explained. "The next step for OKCoin is the brand 'OKCoin,' but this is really going to be the base for our expansion in the future."

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