OKX founder and CEO Xu Mingxing: Cross-site UIDs should be globally unique, or transfers based only on UID should be prohibited
OKX founder and CEO Star_OKX (@star_okx) posted on X on November 7, 2026, responding to discussion about exchange cross-site UIDs. Star said this is first and foremost a basic technical design and account security issue.
Under the OKX brand, UIDs across different sites should either remain globally unique, or users should not be allowed to make internal cross-site transfers based only on UID. Star explained that a UID is an account identifier. If different sites under the same brand may have the same UID, yet cross-site transfers are allowed through UID alone, this could lead to incorrect identification of the receiving account and the risk of funds being transferred to the wrong account. He described it as, a thousand-mile embankment can collapse in an ant hole, meaning major risks accumulate from small defects.
Star also said he found it hard to understand why this issue became a hot topic in the Simplified Chinese X Crypto community, and expressed incomprehension toward accounts that curse and attack users who suffered asset losses due to platform defects while defending the relevant platforms, asking about the corporate culture and values behind them.
Original source:
Title: Star_OKX original post Publisher: Star_OKX (@star_okx) Publication date: 2026-11-07 URL: https://x.com/star_okx/status/2119197544194744687 Source nature: original post by the party involved Verification status: This read included the full original post and quoted content, accessed on 2026-11-07 Supporting content: OKX cross-site UID principle (globally unique or prohibit cross-site transfers based only on UID), risk explanation, comment on community discussion
ABAB AI Insight
Star_OKX is the founder and CEO of OKX and has led the platform since 2013. In this post, he cited users’ descriptions of the same UID appearing as the recipient in Binance internal transfers, and explicitly stated OKX’s own design principle: UIDs across different sites under the same brand must be globally unique, or cross-site internal transfers based only on UID must not be allowed. This principle directly addresses the uniqueness of account identifiers in a multi-entity environment and the matching of transfer entry points.
Many exchanges, due to regulatory requirements, have established separate operating entities in different jurisdictions, with account systems and funds pools isolated from one another. Binance previously publicly explained that its local sites, such as Thailand, Turkey, and the United States, were independently developed for historical compliance reasons, do not share account systems, and cross-site operations must use the destination site address rather than the main-site UID. Star’s statement sets “UID globally unique” or “prohibit cross-site transfers based only on UID” as a mandatory either-or condition, avoiding identification errors when duplicate identifiers and transfer paths coexist.
Compared with fixed addresses or QR codes, a purely numeric UID as an internal transfer identifier is more prone to scope ambiguity in a multi-site environment. If the UID spaces between sites are not isolated and cross-site use is allowed, recipient parsing may land on the wrong account. Star called this a basic design issue and used the ant-hole-to-collapse-the-dike analogy to describe risk accumulation. In community discussion, some users pointed out that Binance in fact does not allow cross-site UID transfers, and that the mistaken operation stemmed from users assuming UID could be used across sites.
This statement publicly presents OKX’s account identifier strategy as a clear rule and points to abusive behavior toward users who suffered losses. For platforms, UID namespace design in a multi-entity architecture directly affects the security boundaries of internal transfers; for users, cross-site operations need to rely on destination-site-specific addresses rather than digital identifiers shared under a brand. The observation indicators are whether each platform clearly marks the scope of UID use in public documents or transfer interfaces, and how cross-site mistaken transfers are handled afterward and what product changes follow.
ABAB News · Cognitive Law
- Under multiple sites of the same brand, either the UID must be globally unique or cross-site transfers based only on UID must not be allowed; one of the two must be chosen.
- When the account identifier does not match the transfer entry point, incorrect recipient identification is caused by design defects rather than by the user’s unilateral operation.
- When the scope of basic identifiers is not isolated, small defects can accumulate into the risk of funds being transferred to the wrong account.