OKX Wallet Interview with Yue Xiaoyu: The Philosophy of Web3 Products from a Seasoned Practitioner's Perspective (Part 1)
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OKX Wallet Interview with Yue Xiaoyu: The Philosophy of Web3 Products from a Seasoned Practitioner's Perspective (Part 1)
A deep dive into how to build Web3 products that truly meet user needs.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insights
After more than a month of technical refinement and security upgrades, OKX DEX officially returned on May 5, 2025, delivering a more efficient and reliable trading experience for users. As an all-in-one DEX aggregator, OKX DEX leverages its proprietary X Routing algorithm to find optimal liquidity across over 130 blockchains and 500+ decentralized exchanges, enabling users to trade with lower fees and reduced slippage.
For this product relaunch, we invited a deep user of OKX DEX—Yue Xiaoyu (@yuexiaoyu111), former product manager at a well-known internet company and current Web3 product manager—to engage in an in-depth dialogue with Shawn, head of OKX DEX. Together, they unpacked the product philosophy and user value insights behind this return, and explored how to build truly user-centric Web3 products, extracting actionable inspiration to further enhance user experience.
Now, let’s dive into this insightful conversation. This is part one.
Why Did You Become a Deep User of OKX DEX?
1. What prompted your first use of OKX DEX? What core factors led you to quickly become a power user?
Yue Xiaoyu: Compared to many industry OGs, I entered the space relatively late—just at the end of the 2022 bull market and start of the bear market. It’s only been about three years since then, and I haven’t even experienced a full market cycle yet. But from day one, I knew I wanted to be an on-chain participant, not just another retail trader buying coins on centralized exchanges. Only by becoming a real blockchain user, gaining firsthand experience and information, could I truly understand this industry and seize my own opportunities. This might reflect my long-standing mindset—I often question secondhand information and trust my own experience more. You can’t learn swimming without getting into the water.
The first step into on-chain activity is naturally acquiring a wallet. After all, wallets are the gateway to the Web3 world—the first blockchain application every regular user interacts with. In the last cycle, MetaMask was practically a must-have for on-chain users, affectionately known as the “little fox” wallet. My first wallet was also MetaMask. However, while it was “functional,” its overly simplistic features and frequent lagging were far from being “user-friendly.” So later, I began searching for a multi-chain wallet that could easily manage assets across chains. That’s when I started trying out different wallets.
After testing numerous wallets for some time, I found that OKX Wallet was actually the most convenient. On one hand, it's very beginner-friendly, with a low barrier to entry, smooth design, and easy onboarding. On the other hand, as my on-chain experience grew and I engaged with various projects across different chains, I increasingly appreciated the many powerful native advanced features offered by OKX Wallet.
I have multiple identities on-chain: airdrop hunter, DeFi user, and meme coin trader. My initial identity was as an airdrop hunter. While exploring different projects, I discovered I could earn airdrop rewards—this opened up a whole new world for me. I used airdrop farming as a way to learn, explore, and interact with various products, gaining direct, first-hand knowledge. And precisely because of airdrop hunting, I became a deep user of OKX Wallet. In fact, OKX Wallet is arguably the best wallet for airdrop farming. For airdrop hunters, the biggest pain point is managing assets scattered across multiple chains and protocols—and OKX Wallet is currently the best solution available. Whether in terms of supported public chains, parsed DeFi protocols, or speed of integration with new chains and protocols, it leads the market by a wide margin.
Looking back at my journey, I’ve undergone several identity shifts: starting as an airdrop hunter, earning passive income while learning about products; evolving into a DeFi user, diving deeper into protocols and yield farming; and now becoming an on-chain trader, chasing trending narratives to uncover wealth-generating opportunities. This has been my entire path—and OKX Wallet, as a powerful tool, has significantly boosted my efficiency. This is my journey. This is my story with OKX.
2. During the over-a-month-long pause, what key initiatives did the OKX DEX team focus on?
Shawn: During this period, our team didn’t stop—we were actually busier than usual.
On one hand, while maintaining core functionality, we intensified our efforts to upgrade the trading product’s security and risk control systems, which were critical priorities. Our new risk control system is now stronger than ever, capable of real-time threat interception. Very few platforms in the industry can achieve real-time blocking of malicious attacks—our ability to do so stems from our accumulated technical expertise. On the other hand, upon returning with these upgrades, users will notice a significant improvement in trading speed. The team has made substantial progress in underlying trading capabilities, including transaction speed, sandwich attack protection, and the intelligence level of smart slippage.
We have internal test data showing near-instant deployment. In specific scenarios, we can even execute copy trades within the same block. For example, once we receive a signal and identify the target address, we can complete the trade in the same block as that address.
Beyond that, our market data and token analytics capabilities never stopped advancing. We’ve continuously launched new features such as Signals from Top Traders and Wallet Tracking, greatly enriching our interface. From a simple initial design to today’s feature-rich platform, we’ve come a long way. Going forward, we’ll roll out even more innovations covering both trading and analytical capabilities—these are “black tech” features unique to our industry. Details remain under wraps for now, but users will see them very soon.
3. How did you feel about the OKX DEX service suspension and relaunch? Did you find a suitable alternative?
Shawn: During the OKX DEX downtime, my daily “farming” activities were severely disrupted. Normally, I manage dozens of addresses via OKX Wallet, performing cross-chain transfers, swaps, and joining various project LPs—all seamlessly within a single interface. After the shutdown, I had to manually visit official or third-party bridges of different ecosystems, compare rates one by one, and repeat operations. This was time-consuming, labor-intensive, and increased both slippage and fees—an extremely painful experience.
I tried several mainstream wallets and specialized tools, including various wallets, on-chain monitoring dashboards, and trading assistants. None could match OKX DEX in the following areas: multi-address management—most wallets support only a single address and lack the ability to batch-create and manage hundreds of addresses. Trading route aggregation—they lack an autonomous routing algorithm like OKX DEX’s X Routing, unable to automatically optimize across hundreds of DEXs, resulting in high cross-chain costs. Mobile fluidity—while dedicated trading tools exist, their mobile optimization is lacking, making operations clunky and severely limiting time-sensitive use cases like “trading on the go” or “quick entry within half an hour.”
Based on these experiences, I believe OKX DEX should continue to deepen its offerings in the following directions: introduce more intelligent coin selection indicators, combining AI algorithms to provide alerts and target filtering for “chain-scanning” users, reducing information noise. Upgrade copy trading and risk management features, building on “smart money” tracking to enable automatic copy trading, take-profit/stop-loss strategies, and push notifications to help users better manage positions. Enhance address and asset monitoring, offering granular multi-address surveillance, visualized fund flow tracking, and anomaly alerts to meet the needs of professional traders.
4. What specifically strengthened your trust in OKX DEX?
Yue Xiaoyu: My trust in OKX DEX comes from OKX’s steadfast commitment to decentralization—this is the core reason I deeply admire the company. When I first started using OKX Wallet, I researched the app and noticed that its private key module had undergone code security audits by multiple independent parties. Given that many wallet products have suffered breaches, I’m inherently skeptical of even well-known wallets—but this transparency from OKX Wallet gave me strong confidence.
Later, during the Meme coin boom, numerous Meme coin trading tools emerged, especially Telegram bots (TG Bots). These bots offer faster execution speeds and rich trading strategies, such as take-profit orders and conditional triggers. These features are important—most people can’t monitor the market 24/7, and given the speed required in meme coin trading, manual operation isn’t sustainable. Hence, automation tools are essential. Yet OKX was slow to launch advanced services like limit orders.
Eventually, OKX DEX introduced its own limit order service—but unlike the TG Bots on the market, OKX’s solution is fully decentralized. The biggest issue with TG Bot-style tools is that they require private key custody—they are custodial wallets. These platforms generate wallets for users and hold the private keys themselves. When a trigger condition is met, they use those keys to sign and submit transactions. Since users don’t control their own keys—keys are stored on the platform’s servers—the risk is extremely high. If a bot like GMGN gets hacked, attackers could drain all associated funds. In contrast, OKX DEX’s limit orders are non-custodial: orders are posted on-chain and executed by smart contracts, directly solving the fundamental flaw of TG Bots. This shows that even though OKX could have replicated TG Bots to quickly deliver functionality, they chose a more complex yet safer path.
This is what we mean by “doing the right thing, even when it’s hard.” Trust in a product is built through such deliberate choices. Today, I keep the majority of my hot wallet assets in OKX Wallet, and OKX DEX is my most frequently used feature.
Building Web3 Products Aligned with User Needs
5. By proactively “pausing” during peak traffic, did you fear losing market share?
Shawn: That’s a great question. Ever since we announced the pause, people have been speculating about why we made this decision and whether we feared losing market share. Honestly, as employees, market share is indeed an important KPI for us.
But from Star’s tweets and internal communications, it’s clear that we believe corporate values and social responsibility outweigh market share—it was simply the right thing to do. This principle is precisely why we could confidently hit the pause button.
Going forward, our overall strategy won’t change much—we remain committed to serving our users well. That said, our team, myself included, has matured significantly. Previously, we might have thought a feature was “good enough” if it worked. But after engaging deeply with user communities and experts, we realized that’s far from sufficient. Now, our mindset has shifted—we develop features based on real user scenarios, not assumptions.
6. Should Web3 products emulate Web2 user experiences? What’s your view on OKX DEX’s Web2-like interface design?
Yue Xiaoyu: Web3 products should absolutely deliver Web2-like user experiences. The biggest challenge our industry currently faces is how to continuously attract external traffic and increase positive externalities—this is both a core mission and the most urgent task. Our industry must move beyond simple PVP dynamics and players exploiting each other. We need to create things that genuinely impact the real world and bring tangible value.
Let me share a theory from Meng Yan, founder of ERC-3525 and a renowned Chinese blockchain expert, which profoundly influenced me:
Web3 is not merely a technological revolution, but a social movement that follows three stages: thesis (idealism), antithesis (alienation), and synthesis (integration with reality).
(1) The thesis stage of Web3: driven by idealists like Satoshi Nakamoto and Vitalik Buterin, proposing a decentralized, transparent value system.
(2) The antithesis stage: marked by the corruption of ideals—deviating from original goals, turning into their opposite—such as today’s widespread “scalping” phenomena.
(3) The synthesis stage: emphasizes integrating Web3 with the real world, combining innovation with tradition, using idealism to transform and integrate with reality.
Historical experience shows that the “antithesis” stage often comes at a huge cost, generating numerous problems and contradictions, while the “synthesis” stage is typically the effective path to achieving long-term goals. Web3 is currently in the “antithesis” phase, characterized by conflict between ideals and reality, and the eruption of various issues. But we cannot remain stuck here—because ultimately, this state exploits idealistic slogans to serve narrow personal or group interests. Such practices not only betray Web3’s original vision but also severely harm the ecosystem’s healthy development.
Ordinary users would rather trust a centralized giant located a thousand kilometers away than face a thousand small scammers right next door. Web3 aims to dismantle centralized fiat and traditional finance, yet has produced countless scam projects—most perform far worse than traditional financial instruments. We must be fully aware of these problems before we can move forward. The first step is providing Web2-like user experiences to lower the barrier for new users. The Web2.5 era will last a long time, making Web2-like interfaces in Web3 products critically important.
7. Web3 products often face a "chicken-and-egg" dilemma—should OKX DEX prioritize product excellence or user growth first?
Yue Xiaoyu: Product is the primary driver of growth. Growth without a solid product foundation is like a tree without roots or water without a source. Throughout Web3 history, many products have believed brute-force marketing can achieve miracles—aggressively grabbing market share from competitors through operations and promotions. But these gains are usually short-lived. Only those who truly excel in product quality survive in the long run.
A classic example is Uniswap versus Sushiswap. Because Uniswap, the leading DEX protocol, delayed launching its token, Sushiswap launched a “vampire attack”—issuing tokens to lure users and liquidity from competitors. “You won’t issue a token? Fine, we will—use our product and get rewarded.” In the short term, Sushiswap achieved massive success, even surpassing Uniswap in trading volume. But today, how many still remember Sushiswap? Meanwhile, Uniswap continued innovating: after gaining market acceptance with V2, it introduced concentrated liquidity in V3 to boost capital efficiency, then added Hooks in V4, allowing developers to customize logic and extend DEX functionality. Uniswap has become foundational infrastructure for DeFi and the broader industry—no one questions its product leadership. The same applies to OKX DEX: it must return to product fundamentals. When the product is excellent, user growth will follow organically.
8. How necessary is OKX Wallet’s goal of becoming an all-in-one Web3 gateway? What does it mean for users and the industry?
Yue Xiaoyu: OKX Wallet’s ambition to become an all-in-one Web3 gateway is essential. The current multi-chain landscape has led to fragmented liquidity and disjointed on-chain experiences, creating a strong need for a unified entry point that offers seamless, integrated services. When ordinary users enter the Web3 world, their first hurdle is the fractured experience caused by multiple chains: Why are there so many chains? What are the differences? What is Gas on each chain? How do I transfer assets across chains? Given that our industry is still in its infancy—with no unified protocol standards and a highly competitive, fragmented ecosystem—there is an urgent market demand for a consistent, unified user experience.
What was the user experience like before OKX Wallet? Users downloaded one wallet for EVM ecosystems, another for Solana, and yet another when TON gained popularity. They had to manually maintain Gas on each chain and figure out cross-chain transfers. The entire process was extremely painful—every new ecosystem meant downloading a new wallet and new tools. This is where the necessity of a multi-chain wallet like OKX Wallet becomes clear: users no longer need multiple wallets or hunt for cross-chain bridges. This explains why OKX Wallet rapidly captured dominant market share.
Looking back at OKX Wallet’s rise, we can see how crucial rapid ecosystem support is for product growth. A key moment was May 2023, when Bitcoin ordinals surged in popularity. OKX Wallet provided fast, seamless support—among the few wallets compatible with ordinals. Riding this wave, OKX Wallet absorbed massive traffic, becoming the go-to wallet for ordinal users. Many users started with ordinals and stayed with OKX Wallet, which then enabled them to easily manage Ethereum ecosystem assets too—leading to rapid growth in Ethereum-related data.
Each public chain ecosystem represents a distinct user community. Creating a unified gateway and all-in-one platform means aggregating these fragmented users and liquidity pools. The combined effect? Exponential user growth.
Disclaimer: This article reflects the author’s views only. It does not constitute (i) investment advice or recommendations; (ii) an offer or solicitation to buy, sell, or hold digital assets; or (iii) financial, accounting, legal, or tax advice. We do not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of the information provided. Holding digital assets (including stablecoins and NFTs) involves high risk and may experience significant volatility. You should carefully consider whether trading or holding digital assets is suitable for your financial situation. Please consult your legal/tax/investment professionals regarding your specific circumstances. You are solely responsible for understanding and complying with applicable local laws and regulations.
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