Public domain to the left, private domain to the right: Observing the SocialFi competition among crypto exchanges through OKX's "Planet"

As one of the first “creators” to receive the beta invitation, I have recently experienced OKX’s long-anticipated strategic product—OKX Planet (Orbit). Honestly, at first I thought it was just a defensive follow-up to “Binance Square,” but after trying it out, I realized that the OKX team aims to create a different kind of product.

The Exchange’s “Midlife Crisis” and Traffic Anxiety

Looking at the beginning of 2026, the CEX track has become fiercely competitive. Competing over assets? Listing speed is rapid across platforms. Competing over financial products? Slightly lower APY, and funds don’t stay long. Competing over depth? The liquidity of top exchanges is no longer just “adequate.” Not to mention the continuous emergence of Perp DEXs grabbing market share.

Exchanges face a common dilemma: they have become mere “tools.” Traffic in Web2, trust in the hands of KOLs, and exchanges are at the end of the value chain, earning only hard-to-justify transaction fees. This “traffic disconnect” leaves exchanges feeling extremely insecure.

If we review the development history of cryptocurrency exchanges, we can clearly see the evolution of competitive focus:

1.0 Stage (Wild West Era): Core competitiveness lies in “having coins to trade.” Exchanges compete on listing speed and basic deposit/withdrawal stability.

2.0 Stage (Infrastructure Era): Core competitiveness lies in “depth and derivatives.” During this phase, OKX established technical barriers with its powerful contract matching engine and unified account system.

3.0 Stage (Ecosystem and Attention Era): When technology and liquidity become standard, depth can be shared, and users’ time and trust become scarce resources. Pure trading tools are cold and prone to user churn; social relationships are warm and generate high stickiness.

OKX’s strategic intent is to reclaim the “decision-making starting point.” By breaking the current physical separation of social relationships, content consumption, and asset trading, OKX aims to build a closed loop of “trading as social, social as trading.”

Not a “Square,” but a “Private Domain” Walled Garden

Many people, upon first seeing Planet, compare it to Binance Square, as after the success of the Square, other competitors have also followed with similar features. But in my view, although neither is inherently better, their underlying logic is fundamentally different.

Binance Square is Web3’s X: it handles public domain traffic. Emphasizing breadth of information, dissemination, and industry hot topics, it is a noisy public opinion arena.

With over 300 million users, Binance Square has indeed created an “opinion high ground” in the industry. It aims for users to read news and discuss market trends here, maintaining user activity by capturing their time. This is a broad, flood-like approach, with advantages in liveliness but disadvantages in information noise and higher decision-making costs for users seeking precise trading.

OKX Planet is Web3’s DC + TG: it handles private domain traffic. It explicitly targets core fan groups and professional creators capable of outputting high-quality trading strategies. It is a “private domain monetization and fan management tool for KOLs/traders.”

Every feature of OKX Planet is highly utilitarian—everything is designed to shorten trading paths.

In traditional communities, KOLs often shout signals like: “Buy BTC at current price, stop loss xxx.” Users need to memorize levels, switch chat apps, open the exchange, search for trading pairs, and input levels. In Planet, this process is encapsulated into a “trading card.” Creators publish cards, users click, and the system directly pops up an order window with leverage and stop-loss pre-filled.

This is not only UI optimization but also “digital responsibility.” The system tracks the real profit/loss and copy trading volume generated by this card. For “talking heads” analysts, this is disastrous; but for practical traders, it is a money-printing machine that directly monetizes their ability.

If you are a KOL with core trading strategies, posting on the Square earns you likes and comments; but on Planet, you earn real money—“subscription fees” and “trade sharing revenue.” OKX uses “trading cards” and “paid groups” to convert the originally vague “social relationships” into quantifiable “trading assets.”

In crypto, paid knowledge groups often rely on TG/WX groups + off-platform transfers, which frequently expose subscribers to scams. Planet allows creators to establish “paid subscription groups,” where users pay monthly/yearly fees to join, eliminating worries about scams and group bans.

OKX Planet’s product logic is built on a closed and efficient economic model: discover - connect - trade - incentivize.

Users discover high-probability traders via live broadcast halls or recommendation algorithms. The data is based on real on-chain/exchange spot data, not self-reported fake profiles. Then, through “paid entry” or “follow live streams,” users establish strong connections with creators. These connections require a threshold (money or time), making them far higher quality than ordinary followings.

In high-emotion scenarios like live streams or group chats, creators publish “trading cards” or showcase “selected tokens.” Users can place orders directly without leaving the interface. Transaction fees are captured by the system and automatically shared with creators according to preset rules, creating a positive feedback loop.

This addresses trust issues in the current crypto market: creators’ performance metrics (ROI, win rate) are directly fetched from OKX’s backend data, which is tamper-proof. This solves the trust crisis associated with external community “P-picture masters.” Creators using paid groups essentially use pricing mechanisms to filter high-net-worth users, reducing community maintenance costs and increasing per-user output.

For OKX, this closed loop locks in KOLs, indirectly locking in their most active trading users. If Planet succeeds, OKX will no longer be a cold matching engine but a warm community ecosystem. This “people-to-people connection” moat is far more robust than one based on “fees and rebates.”

Opportunities and Risks Coexist

Although the business logic of Planet is excellent, we must also recognize the hidden risks.

Regulatory Risks: “Paid signal calling” in strict jurisdictions like Europe and the US can easily be classified as “investment advisory services.” If KOLs on the platform lack the proper licenses, the exchange, as the provider of tools and fee channels, may face regulatory scrutiny.

Trust Backlash: Once social relationships are tied to money, they become extremely fragile. If a “KOL” on Planet makes a misjudgment causing users to lose money, users will blame the KOL and also vent their anger at the platform’s inadequate review. Balancing “open creation” and “quality control” will be a major challenge for OKX’s operations team.

Summary

After experiencing OKX Planet, my biggest impression is that it marks a comprehensive upgrade in the exchange’s competitive dimensions—from “hard power” (performance, liquidity) to “soft power” (social relationships, content ecology).

It may also be the closest Web3 SocialFi has come to practical implementation. Past on-chain SocialFi projects like Friend.tech failed because interactions were too cumbersome, and users participated mainly for airdrops or rewards. Once rewards stopped, users quickly abandoned the platform. Planet, however, places social interactions in the most money-centric environment—the exchange—and directly links it to mainstream assets.

For traders, this is the most efficient “cash-out” machine; for ordinary users, it is the closest pathway to “wealth secrets.”

OKX’s move is risky but also very precise. If within the next year we see many paid group “teachers” migrating to Planet, then OKX will have truly carved out its own moat in this existing user game.