Cryptocurrency exchange OKX has launched an audacious new marketing campaign, encouraging a comprehensive overhaul of existing financial and digital systems. The campaign subtly takes aim at the American exchange Coinbase and the wider conventional finance sector.
OKX unveiled its latest high-quality commercial, with its CMO, Haider Rafique, explaining the firm’s conviction in a Cointelegraph interview that blockchain technology is crucial for revamping financial infrastructure and promoting digital ownership.
During Rafique’s tenure, OKX has engaged in significant partnerships and daring ad campaigns with entities such as Manchester City and the McLaren Formula1 team, thereby bringing cryptocurrencies and Web3 offerings to broad global audiences.
The “Rewrite the System” initiative uses potent imagery to underscore issues like inflation, data breaches, and censorship as evidence of a flawed system. Rafique stressed that discussions about updating existing financial and digital structures do not address the deep-seated problems that inspired the campaign:
“The current system is not really designed to be updated and then updated into a system that can really solve some of the problems that the entire system has created.”
Several events over the past year have revealed the deficiencies of current financial systems, as well as the lapses of conventional finance and decentralized finance (DeFi) entities.
The notorious fall of FTX and the subsequent arrest of its former CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried, tarnished the cryptocurrency sector’s reputation. Traditional finance institutions, meanwhile, grappled with their own crises in a high-inflation economy, leading to the folding of Silicon Valley Bank, Silvergate Bank, and Signature Bank.
Rafique is of the opinion that these ongoing system failures highlight the stress on the financial ecosystem. He believes that these events will demonstrate how blockchain-based software offers individuals more control over their financial and digital independence:
“Our hope is that we can give the tooling to people that Web3 starts with, ultimately downloading software on your machine or your phone that enables you to be your own bank.”
The campaign also emphasizes interoperability as a key element in the case for blockchain-based, Web3 tools to revolutionize financial systems and platforms. Rafique cites the isolated nature and incompatibility of Google’s Play Store and Apple’s App Store as an example where blockchain-based applications could offer superior interoperability:
“Crypto and blockchain-based apps are actually designed to connect with each other and drive their interoperability.”
OKX aims to offer a wallet service that connects public chains, simplifying the management of digital assets, and exemplifying the interoperability inherent in blockchain technology:
“We want to connect all crypto ecosystems together so you can hop from one place to another place or another place very easily, but also at very low transaction costs.”
Rafique is firm in his belief that OKX’s advertising efforts, which include engaging audiences through partnerships in diverse markets, have shaped the exchange’s image.
