OKX opens Onchain Spot and Perps beta with free XP

A practice launch inside the OKX app

OKX has introduced Onchain Spot and Perps inside its mobile app, opening a beta competition for strategies based on stocks, indices and commodities. Its 15 October announcement says participants use free XP, the points balance for the test, through 14 November. Trading with real assets is planned to follow. The immediate change is therefore a way to try the new trading experience, rather than an announcement that customers can already fund these markets with their own money.

Access depends on the account and region

The blog names eligible customers across Southeast Asia, Northeast Asia, the CIS region, the Middle East and North Africa. Its European website address does not establish European access, and it supplies no complete eligible-country list.

An existing verified OKX account can enable a self-custodial Onchain Account, protected by a passkey and supported by recovery. The app’s Trade or Explore tab leads to setup, starter XP and each market’s trading rules.

XP is a test balance, not a deposit

The dedicated product page describes a three-stage setup: claim initial XP, complete the one-time account setup, and use the balance to open and close positions. The initial allocation depends on the customer’s OKX VIP tier. The page says the test uses current market prices and the same order-placement flow as live trading, while weekly leaderboards track performance.

No account funding is required for this practice phase. XP is supplied without charge and cannot be topped up or withdrawn. This makes the beta useful for learning the order flow before funded trading arrives, but a balance shown in XP should not be read as withdrawable cash or ownership of the company whose name appears on a mock market.

One competition across several market types

The launch notice gives the competition window as 15 October at 02:00 UTC to 14 November at 16:00 UTC. Its original times are 10:00 on 15 October and midnight on 15 November in UTC+8. The end falls on 15 November in that timezone, but on 14 November in UTC.

The advertised 250,000 USDT pool is shared with Outcomes Season 3, rather than a separate prize pool for each new trading venue. The mock markets include themes such as gold, the S&P 500 ETF, SpaceX and NVIDIA. Rewards depend on the campaign’s rankings, eligibility rules and final settlement. The notice excludes liquidity-providing market-maker accounts and related trading accounts from leaderboard rewards; participation itself is not a promise of a payout.

Spot and perpetual positions work differently

The product documentation distinguishes direct exchanges of supported assets in spot markets from perpetual futures. A perpetual contract provides long or short price exposure without an expiry date. Funding payments help keep its price aligned with the reference index. Those are different position types, even when they appear in the same app and draw on a shared balance.

The documentation also makes market-specific constraints part of the trading process. Markets define minimum trade amounts and order-value limits; perpetual contracts additionally have limits on open exposure. Orders that add exposure must meet those conditions. The documents describe exceptions for selling a full remaining spot balance or fully closing a position below the ordinary minimum. A common interface therefore does not mean identical order rules across markets.

What the onchain engine contributes

Exchange OS is the infrastructure beneath these venues. OKX’s developer documentation describes it as a shared trading stack built on X Layer, covering order matching, collateral management, liquidation, settlement and risk controls. In plain language, it brings together the processes that pair buyers with sellers, maintain positions and record the resulting trades, instead of requiring each new venue to build those systems separately.

The documentation’s rationale is to reduce the fragmentation of accounts, liquidity and trading systems across onchain markets. This explains the common balance and infrastructure in the app announcement. It is an architectural description, not a commitment about future customer pricing, a reward formula or a launch date for funded trading. Those details should come from the applicable product and campaign terms.