OKX founder and CEO Star Xu is standing by the exchange’s decision to freeze about $40,000 in USDG after a user openly said he bought four KYC-verified accounts. The user, posting as “Captain Bunny,” said the accounts were purchased in late 2023 and claimed he needed access to the frozen funds to cover his father’s medical expenses.
From OKX’s perspective, the core issue is simple: if the person operating an account isn’t the person who passed KYC, the account stops being a normal customer profile and becomes a security and compliance risk. Xu framed the freeze as part of the exchange’s obligation to protect user assets and maintain a defensible compliance posture.
— 小兔叽叽 (@captain0bunny) January 11, 2026
What appears to have triggered the freeze
The user said the four accounts were originally verified under other people’s identities, and the access attempts were flagged when facial-verification checks failed to match the new operator. Once that identity break is detected, automated controls can escalate into a hold while the platform assesses ownership, provenance, and legal exposure.
This isn’t about private keys being stolen in the classic sense—it’s about control of a regulated account changing hands, which breaks the identity chain the platform relies on. That chain is what supports transaction history, device binding, and provenance checks in a compliance environment.
OKX’s stated conditions for any assistance
Xu laid out three prerequisites before OKX would even consider helping unlock the funds: the original account sellers must formally disclaim ownership, the accounts must not be subject to court or law-enforcement freezes, and the claimant must provide verifiable proof of funds that meets regulatory standards. The common denominator across those conditions is traceability—OKX is signaling it won’t move without an audit-ready story of who owns what and why.
试想这样一种情况：如果你购买了他人的账户，而原账户持有人随后能够提供身份证明等有效、完整的身份信息，并明确主张该账户归其所有，同时要求平台重置账户登录、提币等权限——在这种情况下，OKX应当相信能够证明账户身份的一方，还是无法提供任何身份信息、仅凭个人主张的一方？… https://t.co/ICIbV9mPPT
— Star (@star_okx) January 12, 2026
In practical terms, OKX is treating the case as a containment exercise: reduce legal ambiguity first, then evaluate any release path. That approach is designed to limit the exchange’s risk if a dispute later emerges over who truly controls the accounts or whether the funds are tied to prohibited activity.
Secondary markets for KYC’d accounts are a known workaround for regional restrictions, but they also create predictable failure modes: identity checks fail, automated holds trigger, and disputes become slow and documentation-heavy. The moment account control transfers away from the verified identity, platforms lose confidence in the integrity of the account’s security and compliance signals.
There’s also industry data suggesting account-related fraud represented around 15% of crypto losses in 2024, which helps explain why exchanges keep tightening enforcement even when it creates high-friction customer outcomes. The trade-off is operational: stricter controls reduce fraud pathways, but they increase the number of freezes and escalations.
What to monitor next
The key variable is whether the claimant can meet OKX’s own release thresholds—seller disclaimers, no legal holds, and robust proof of ownership and source of funds. How OKX resolves this will influence how users and counterparties evaluate the risk of relying on bought accounts and how exchanges design recovery, re-verification, and device-binding workflows.