Crypto exchange OKX touts $7.5 billion in 'clean' reserves - which include none of its own native token

• OKX, the fourth largest crypto exchange by volume this year, published its third proof of reserves report Thursday.
• The report was the first by OKX to show an exact breakdown of assets, which consist of bitcoin, ether, and USDT.

OKX's third proof of reserves report showed the crypto exchange holds $7.5 billion in reserves — and they do not include its native token OKB.

Thursday's report was the first one that showed an exact breakdown of its assets, which include bitcoin, ether and the USDT stablecoin. OKX holds collateral that exceeds user assets, with a reserve ratio of 105% for bitcoin, 105% for ether, and 101% for USDT, according to the company.

Meanwhile, third-party analytics firm CryptoQuant said OKX's reserves are "100% clean," according to a metric that gauges how reliant a firm is on its native token. That compares to Binance's 87% mark, and Bitfinex's 70%, per CoinDesk.

The collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried's FTX empire sparked a push for more transparency in the cryptocurrency industry. A November 2 CoinDesk report showed Bankman-Fried's trading firm, Alameda Research, held a significant amount of FTX's native token, FTT, on its balance sheet.

The report prompted Binance to dump its FTT holdings, triggering massive withdrawals at FTX and eventually its bankruptcy filing.

Should a company use a token it invented as a foundation to its balance sheet, it would raise liquidity concerns as well as questions as to why the exchange isn't collateralized by a fiat currency or independent asset.

Haider Rafique, OKX's chief marketing officer, said in a statement that security, transparency, and trust are core tenets for the company, and the audit shows its commitment to those values.

"We've already taken a leadership position by publishing our PoR monthly," Rafique said. "As industry standards for PoR continue to take shape, we expect that our reserve asset quality will be one of many key differentiating factors for OKX in the market."

Rafique separately told CoinDesk Thursday that OKX doesn't build its company around its native token, and that the token has never been a big part of its business or treasury.