OPNX bond trading has become a gimmick and has been questioned as "fake trading". Can Su Zhu's wish to open an exchange to pay off his debts come true?

Author: Grapefruit, ChainCatcher
 
Recently, the crypto debt trading platform OPNX (Open Exchange), founded by Su Zhu, the founder of Three Arrows Capital, has attracted the attention of the crypto community with many positive news, such as the increase in trading volume and the surge in the price of the platform currency OX.
On June 26, OPNX tweeted that its daily trading volume has exceeded 50 million US dollars, with an average daily trading volume of 41 million US dollars. Since its launch on June 1, its platform token OX has risen from 0.011 US dollars to 0.044 US dollars, with a maximum increase of 300%. Now the price has fallen back to 0.036 US dollars, with a total market value of about 119 million US dollars, ranking 233rd among crypto assets.
Judging from the transaction data of the OPNX platform, the transaction volume of this new cryptocurrency trading platform, which has been online for only 3 months, is already comparable to that of old cryptocurrency trading platforms such as Crypto.com (24-hour trading volume of US$79.63 million) and Bitfinex (24-hour trading volume of US$68 million).
It seems that all these indicate that OPNX is developing in the direction set by its founder, but due to the particularity of the founding team, users are always skeptical about the platform.
On June 22, a community user pointed out that the volume and price fluctuations of OPNX's BTC asset trading pairs were inconsistent or there were "fake transactions", which caused extensive discussion in the crypto community. In addition, OPNX, which was originally positioned as a crypto debt trading platform, has long used debt tokens as a gimmick product, and its real business is actually contract trading.
The combination of words "dishonest founder + failed platform" always lingers around OPNX and is difficult to fade away.
 
OPNX's trading volume of tens of millions was questioned as "fake trading", but it was less than two dollars on the first day of listing
 
Since entering June, OPNX has released a series of good news. On June 26, OPNX tweeted that the daily trading volume has exceeded 50 million US dollars, and the average daily trading volume is 41 million US dollars, etc. On June 25, it announced the launch of the first Launchpad project, the unsecured credit market Raiser (RZR), and all OX pledgers will share 10% of the RZR supply allocation; On June 24, OPNX announced the launch of the credit currency oUSD, which can be exchanged with USDT 1:1; On June 1, it announced the launch of the new governance token OX and the governance platform The Herd. OX allows users to trade for free through staking, and supports the conversion of OX with FLEX, etc.
OPNX (Open Exchange) is a crypto debt trading platform co-founded by Su Zhu and Kyle Davies, founders of Three Arrows Capital, and the bankrupt exchange CoinFLEX. It tokenizes the debts in bankrupt crypto projects for users to trade or use their debt assets as collateral to release trapped crypto asset liquidity. The platform debuted in February this year and announced in early March that it had acquired all assets of the exchange CoinFLEX, including personnel, technology and tokens, and continued to use FLEX as the platform token, reorganizing it and renaming it Open Exchange.
Since the launch of the OPNX platform, its trading volume has attracted much attention from users. According to FLEX Statistics data, since June 23, the 24-hour trading volume of the OPNX platform has exceeded 50 million US dollars, with a peak of 57 million US dollars, and the current 24-hour trading volume is 47.72 million US dollars.
However, the authenticity of the transaction data of the OPNX platform has been questioned. On June 22, crypto trading user @Loris tweeted that by analyzing the daily trading volume data of OPNX's BTC perpetual contract and comparing it with the top trading platforms, it was found that OPNX may have "fake transactions".
Loris pointed out that the normal volume and price data displayed by the head trading platform has the characteristics of consistent volume and price fluctuations (such as higher trading volume should be accompanied by large price fluctuations) and the existence of a stable baseline. However, the volume and price data of OPNX show that the price fluctuations in the range of its increased trading volume are extremely small, while the price fluctuations in the range of reduced trading volume are large.
In addition, OPNX daily trading volume has an independent and obvious pattern relative to price fluctuations, which indicates that OPNX may have "false transactions".
Another crypto user then commented that OPNX’s fake trading volume is so obvious.
 
The BTC contract price trend chart data on the OPNX official website is consistent with what Loris said. Since June, the trading volume has surged regularly (usually at 8:00, 12:00, 4:00, etc. every day), and the peaks in the trading volume column are mostly in a similar range. The trading volume is huge during low price fluctuations and extremely low during sharp price fluctuations. The BTC price chart data and trend of the OKX platform during the same period are more in line with the volume-price law.
BTC/USDT contract icon on the OPNX platform
BTC/USDT contract chart on OKX
OPNX responded that these trading volumes were attributed to its introduction of a market maker program. However, OPNX's market maker incentive plan was announced as early as April 8. But @Loris' tweet has also been deleted.
The reason why the trading volume has attracted so much attention is that OPNX was reported to have a trading volume of less than $2 on the day it went online on April 4. According to CoinDesk, OPNX only executed two transactions within 24 hours of its launch, with a total value of $1.26. Later, OPNX officials clarified that CoinDesk's $1.26 transaction data only came from contracts and did not include spot. In fact, the total trading volume on that day was $13.64.
In just three months, OPNX's daily trading volume increased from around US$10 to US$50 million. The official explanation for this data change is the result of the combined effect of multiple factors, such as the market maker plan, platform currency OX, Launchpad new projects, etc., but this cannot dispel users' doubts.
 
OPNX debt trading becomes a gimmick, contracts become the main force
 
In addition to the authenticity of the trading volume data, the debt trading that OPNX originally focused on has also become a gimmick product, and the trading volume of claim assets (also known as debt tokens) has been almost zero for many days.
Currently, more than 99% of the trading volume of the OPNX platform is actually contributed by perpetual contracts. Take the trading volume on July 3 as an example. The 24-hour trading volume of the OPNX platform was US$68.12 million, of which the contract trading volume was US$67.99 million and the spot trading volume was only US$137,000. The debt tokens were included in the spot trading volume and can be ignored.
This seems to be contrary to the original positioning. At the beginning of the platform, OPNX was a platform featuring debt trading and planned to support claims trading of multiple bankrupt companies, including Celsius, FTX, Genesis, BlockFi, Voyager, Three Arrows Captical, etc.
The first debt token to be launched was rvUSD (Recovery Value USD Tokens), a debt token issued by CoinFLEX, representing Roger Ver’s $84 million personal debt to CoinFLEX. After CoinFLEX was acquired by OPNX, CoinFLEX users’ KYC information and account balances could be seamlessly migrated to OPNX as its first customers, and the debt token rvUSD was also launched on OPNX.
However, the price of rvUSD has been falling since it was listed on OPNX in April, from a high of $0.62 to the current $0.15, and the trading volume has been zero for many days, with almost no liquidity.
rvUSD chart
The Celsius debt token CELSIUS, which was launched on June 1, supports Celsius creditors to tokenize their debts and release the liquidity of their trapped funds. However, as of July 4, there has been no transaction since the launch of the CELSIUS/USDT trading pair, the trading volume has always been zero, the token price has always been a straight line, and there are only 8 sell orders in the order book.
Debt token CELSIUS trend chart
From this point of view, OPNX has not developed into a preset debt trading platform. Its business has now shifted to be similar to traditional cryptocurrency exchanges, with contracts becoming the main force of the platform.
In fact, this has long been traced. On April 4, OPNX, a platform known for its debt claims trading, was officially launched for the first time. The first function launched was to support cryptocurrency spot and derivatives trading services, not debt-based tokens. Transaction functions. This was also described by community users as "under the guise of supporting crypto claim transactions, the real business is actually a contract casino." This also shows that OPNX’s business focus is on encrypted asset trading, rather than debt trading. After all, the types of claims trading assets and user groups are limited.
In addition, the Dubai Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority issued a written reprimand to OPNX and its founders and CEO on April 18, stating that they operated and promoted their digital asset trading platform OPNX without the necessary local licenses. This exposed OPNX's compliance problems.
 
The shadow of failure is hard to dispel, can the plan of opening an exchange to repay debts be realized?
 
OPNX attracted users' attention through a short-term increase in trading volume and a short-term surge in the platform token OX, but the shadow of failure caused by the founder's breach of trust and CoinFLEX's suspension of user withdrawals could never be dispelled.
On June 27, Three Arrows Capital liquidators were still trying to recover $1.3 billion from its founders Su Zhu and Kyle Davies. According to a previous report by business management company Teneo, Three Arrows Capital now owes 27 companies about $3.5 billion in debt. However, the trading platform CoinFLEX has suspended all user withdrawals due to a funding gap, and forced its creditors and investors to hold shares in the company.
The combination of "dishonest founder + failed platform" really makes it difficult for users to fully trust it, and OPNX has been opposed by many people since its inception. When Su Zhu first announced the launch of the crypto debt trading platform on Twitter, one of the crypto community users commented below, "You should focus on talking to your lawyers instead of launching new scams." In addition, Evgeny Gaevoy, CEO of market maker Wintermute, once said that he would not invest in the new exchange established by the founder of Three Arrows Capital; Nic Carter, partner of crypto venture capital Castle Island Ventures, later said that the discredited fraudsters cooperated with other discredited fraudsters to trade the debt of a closed fraudulent exchange. This actually sounds quite reasonable.
After OPNX went online in April this year, it announced its main investors through Twitter, including AppWorks, Susquehanna (SIG), DRW, MIAX Group, China Merchants Bank International (Hong Kong Branch), Token Bay Capital, Nascent, Tuwaiq Limited, etc. It also stated that these institutions not only provided funds, but also provided a lot of advice and assistance in its vision, token economics, legal framework and the decision to relocate to Hong Kong.
However, the list of investors announced by OPNX was quickly refuted soon after, with DRW, Nascent, MIAX, Susquehanna (SIG) and others denying their investment in OPNX. Among them, Nascent, DRW and other institutions stated that they did not participate in OPNX's financing, but only invested in FLEX tokens in early 2021.
Subsequently, OPNX related personnel stated that Su Zhu and Kyle Davies are no longer involved in OPNX's daily affairs. However, the two still use @OPNX in their Twitter profiles and share data and progress related to the OPNX platform every day. Just yesterday, Kyle Davies also stated in Twitter Space that the two founders of Three Arrows Capital will donate the "future earnings" of the OPNX platform to creditors who suffered losses due to the fund's bankruptcy last year.
This coincides with the user's speculation that "OPNX is an important plan for Su Zhu and others to open an exchange to pay off debts". Exchanges have always been considered cash cows and good businesses in the crypto industry. Someone once said that if the trading platform has a daily transaction volume of 500 BTC, it can also have a net income of half to one bitcoin a day. So, can the desire to pay off debts with the OPNX platform be realized?
According to the calculation, based on OPNX's daily trading volume of 50 million US dollars, the current order placing fee is 0.02%, and the order taking fee is 0.07%, OPNX's daily fee income is 45,000 US dollars. Three Arrows Capital currently owes about 3.5 billion US dollars in debt, and it will take about 77,777 days, or about 213 years, to pay off the debt. If the rise of the platform token OX, the growth of trading volume, and the future listing fee are taken into account, the repayment speed may be accelerated.
However, it is worth noting that the current OPNX official Telegram group has only 2,060 users, while the Chinese Telegram group has 2,690 people (Su Zhu’s Twitter name has also been changed to “朱愫” in Chinese). The number of community users is in sharp contrast to Su Zhu and Kyle Davies’ 568,000 and 517,000 followers respectively.
 