Examined Sep 24, 2026 No published figure US only OKX will not tell you what its US referral pays until you have already signed up.
OKX’s public referral page says rewards “include crypto, trading fee rebates, and more” depending on your region and tells you to check the app; its referral FAQ says the exact reward structure “will always be displayed on the referral page in your account”. The deposit minimum, the balance you must hold, and the amount you receive are all personalized. Anyone quoting you a fixed OKX number is quoting themselves.
What pays what
| New user, verified, who deposits and trades what their offer specifies | An amount only shown in-app |
|---|---|
| Any headline promising a fixed dollar OKX bonus | Not from OKX |
| Your balance dips below the threshold before the 30 days are served | Reclaimed |
| Adding a referral code after your account already exists | Too late |
| Sub-accounts, and referrals across regions | $0 |
Do this, in this order
- Check your state before anything else. The promotion is only for residents of the United States and its territories, and OKX says eligibility “may be restricted depending on the state in which you reside” without listing which ones. That list lives in OKX’s US risk and compliance disclosures, not in the promotion terms. Find yours before you fill in a single form.
- Enter the referral code during registration, never after. OKX’s referral FAQ states that referral codes must be added before invitees create their accounts. There is no retroactive fix.
- Finish advanced identity verification. OKX requires it to participate. Identity verification, often called KYC, is the standard check where you upload a government ID and a photo of yourself so the exchange can confirm who you are. Nothing pays out until it clears.
- Open your own offer in the app and screenshot it. It is the only record of what you were promised. Note the reward, the deposit or trade minimum, and the balance you have to maintain.
- Do the tasks inside the deadline your own offer shows, with trades that count. OKX’s US new-user terms used to give 30 days from account opening. The version updated September 22, 2026 prints no number: tasks must be finished “within the applicable completion period specified in the Rewards under the relevant task requirements”, so the deadline is now as private as the amount. (The August 18 version said “in the Rewards Hub”; the September 22 rewrite dropped the word Hub and changed nothing else in that sentence.) Screenshot it with the offer. The same terms exclude “certain fiat-to-stablecoin trades and their reverse pairs” and “certain stablecoin-to-stablecoin trades and their reverse pairs” from the trading amount, so buying a stablecoin with dollars may not move you toward the target at all.
- Then leave the money alone. You must maintain assets under management of at least the specified amount for a total of 30 days within a 90-day period. Assets under management simply means the value of what you are holding on OKX. Fail it and OKX’s terms say the reward “will be reclaimed”, so a withdrawal at the wrong moment undoes work you already did.
- Expect two more delays after you qualify. Rewards are distributed within 30 days after the conditions are met and verified. The US new-user terms then let OKX lock the reward from trading or withdrawal “for up to 90 days after receipt”.
Two rulebooks, and they contradict each other
OKX serves a global referral FAQ and a separate set of US-specific terms from the same US website, and they do not match. The FAQ even warns that its information “may not apply to all customers”. For a US account the US terms govern. Both moved between August and September 2026: the task window both used to print, 30 days in the US terms and 14 in the FAQ, is gone from both, except that the FAQ still gives trading tasks “within 14 days of sign-up”.
| Time to complete the tasks | Shown under each task in your Rewards (US) vs shown on your referral page, 14 days for trading tasks (FAQ) |
|---|---|
| Lock-up on the reward | A period the referral terms no longer state; up to 90 days in the new-user terms (US) vs 7 days (FAQ) |
| Cap on rewards | Unstated (US) vs per-cycle cap (FAQ) |
| People already in OKX’s affiliate program | Locked out of referral rewards |
| Sub-accounts | Not eligible |
| Referring someone in another region | No reward |
The fine print that can still cost you the reward
It is first come, first served. The US new-user terms say so outright, and the promotion “may be terminated by OKX, in part or completely, at any time with or without notice”. There is no end date to plan around.
OKX can take the value back out of your account. The terms reserve the right to “deduct, offset, or otherwise claw back” the value of a bonus, and to require you to return it. Any violation of the promotion terms or of OKX’s US terms of service, at any time, can disqualify you.
Selling the reward does not free your balance. When a reward lands, OKX places a hold on your account equal to the reward’s live market value, and “The Hold Amount is not fixed at the value at the time of disbursement”. If the coin rises after you sell it, the hold rises with it, and OKX’s own worked example ends with “your entire balance will appear locked”, including money that came from your own sale. The hold lifts only when the balance requirement is met or the reward is reclaimed.
The reward is crypto, priced at the moment it is handed over. The amount of cryptocurrency is calculated at the time of disbursement, based on that crypto’s spot price then, so even the personalized figure you saw in the app is a target and it can drift during the lock-up you cannot trade through.
There is a cap, it is just not written down. OKX says customers can receive multiple referral bonus offers “however OKX may limit the number” a customer may receive. No figure is given.
The terms are current, which is the point. The new-user promotion terms show a last update of September 22, 2026, their second rewrite in five weeks; OKX rewrote its referral FAQ on September 14, 2026, and the US referral bonus terms the day after that, dropping the 30-day lock-up they used to print for a lock-up of unstated length. This is a live program whose paperwork keeps moving and still carries no public price.
Is it worth your time?
Not as a bonus hunt. You cannot compare an offer you are not allowed to see, and the structure asks a lot for it: verify your identity, deposit, trade, then hold a balance you were told about privately for a month out of three, with a clawback if you slip and a lock-up after you succeed. If OKX is the exchange you want for its own sake, open the account, screenshot whatever offer appears, and treat any reward as a surprise. If what you actually want is a signup bonus, take one where the number is printed on the page: Kraken pays a fixed $20 for a bank deposit and real crypto trades by its help pages, with up to $75 only on its referral page, and you can read that before you hand anyone your driver’s license.
