How and Where to Buy Oxygen (OXY) – Detailed Guide

What is OXY?

What is Oxygen Protocol?

Oxygen is a DeFi prime brokerage service built on Solana and powered by Serum's on-chain infrastructure. Oxygen is built around Pools—baskets of assets that take collective actions. Starting with a borrow-lending facility, users will be able to earn yield and get leverage against their portfolios, setting the foundation for a vibrant and decentralised financial ecosystem.

The project launched in late 2020 with the release of its mainnet alpha. Oxygen is headquartered in Switzerland and the core team is made up of people who are passionate about building the financial infrastructure of the future. They collectively have decades of fintech experience, with 15 developers located around the world.

Oxygen’s ambition is to transform our current model of finance into one that is more accessible, fair and powerful than once imaginable. The first phase of Oxygen is a borrow-lending via a pools-based infrastructure. We next plan to create volatility trading agreements and structured product functions, so that developers can create their own structured products. Our ultimate vision is to recreate marketplace-esque business units which exist within investment banks and make them accessible to everyone.

What does Oxygen Protocol offer?

Oxygen’s first phase will be a borrow-lending protocol. Some key features distinguish Oxygen from its peers:

Market-based pricing: Oxygen is built around a pools-based infrastructure, wherein users can create a pool by depositing their assets and marking which ones to lend. Users set their lending parameters, including desired maturity and yield, whether as a market order or limit order. Oxygen will match borrowers and lenders with the Serum DEX on-chain order book (instead of through a pre-set, manually adjusted market model). Users thereby get a fair price for borrowing/lending.

Capital efficiency: Oxygen also allows for multiple use of the same collateral. Users can generate yield on their portfolio while borrowing other assets at the same time. Furthermore, users can utilize all of their portfolio across multiple asset types as collateral when borrowing (cross-collateralization). This should mean lower liquidation risk for user portfolios.

Streamlined in-pool trading: Since Oxygen allows users to interact with the Serum ecosystem and DEX directly from their pools (rather than having users continually deposit/withdraw from accounts), a streamlined trading process is made possible.

Sophisticated products: Because Oxygen uses a general on-chain risk management engine evaluating each user’s pool rather than a fixed borrow/lending model, Oxygen can support arbitrary products: tokens, synthetic products, nonlinear assets, and more; all cross-margined in the same account.

Liquidity: Oxygen will also be seeded with the 140M registered users from Maps.me’s user base who will generate yield from their embedded wallets. This will jump start Oxygen as one of the largest fintech applications. We have other liquidity provisions in place too, including support from Alameda and leading HFT firms.

Scalability: Oxygen is also built on Solana blockchain, which can support over 50,000 TPS, with block times of 400ms and transaction costs of approx. $0.00001, meaning Oxygen has scalability as a completely on-chain P2P borrow-lending and prime brokerage protocol.

Platform and Technology

Oxygen protocol is built on the Solana network. OXY will however be available as both an SPL (native) token and ERC-20, supporting full interoperability between Ethereum and Solana.

Oxygen will run on Serum DEX and Solana, which feature a fully automated on-chain order book and 50K+ transactions per second at a cost of $0.01 / 100 per transaction

Team/Backers/Investors

Oxygen was co-founded by Alex Grebnev and Viktor Mangazeev. Alex Grebnev has over 16 years of investment banking experience (Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch). Viktor is a serial technology entrepreneur and has worked as CIO for a number of large companies. Oxygen’s strategic investors include and DeFi ecosystem partners include Alameda Research, Serum, FTX, Genesis Capital, CMS, MultiCoin, and other leading HFT firms.

Target market (Geographical focus)

We are targeting a number of segments. Our main segment is the general DeFi market and users who are interested in order-book matched, fair borrowing and lending rates (in our first phase) and more sophisticated financial services sets (in our later phases). We are targeting DeFi users all around the world and are running a number of marketing and promotional campaigns across multiple regions to spread awareness of what we’re bringing.

OXY was first tradable on 16th Dec, 2020. It has a total supply of 9,999,999,993.05,077. As of right now OXY has a market capitalization of USD $110,853,578.76. The current price of OXY is $0.0111 and is ranked 1913 on Coinmarketcap and has recently surged 17.04 percent at the time of writing.

OXY has been listed on a number of crypto exchanges, unlike other main cryptocurrencies, it cannot be directly purchased with fiats money. However, You can still easily buy this coin by first buying Ethereum from any fiat-to-crypto exchanges and then transfer to the exchange that offers to trade this coin, in this guide article we will walk you through in detail the steps to buy OXY.

Step 1: Register on Fiat-to-Crypto Exchange

You will have to first buy one of the major cryptocurrencies, in this case, Ethereum (ETH). In this article we will walk you through in details two of the most commonly-used fiat-to-crypto exchanges, Uphold.com and Coinbase. Both exchanges have their own fee policies and other features that we will go through in detail. It is recommended that you try both of them and figure out the one that suits you best.

uphold

Suitable for US traders

Select Fiat-to-Crypto Exchange for details:

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Being one of the most popular and convenient fiat-to-crypto exchanges, UpHold has the following advantages:

  • Easy to buy and trade among multiple assets, more than 50 and still adding
  • Currently more than 7M users worldwide
  • You can apply for UpHold Debit card where you can spend the crypto assets on your account like a normal debit card! (US only but will be in the UK later)
  • Easy to use mobile app where you can withdraw fund to a bank or any other altcoin exchanges easily
  • No hidden fees and any other account fees
  • There are limited buy/sell orders for more advanced users
  • You can easily set up recurring deposits for Dollar Cost Averaging (DCA) if you intend to hold cryptos long term
  • USDT, which is one of the most popular USD-backed stablecoins (basically a crypto that is backed by real fiat money so they are less volatile and can be treated almost as the fiat money it's pegged with) is available, this is more convenient if the altcoin you intend to buy has only USDT trading pairs on the altcoin exchange so you don't have to go through another currency conversion while you buy the altcoin.
Show Details Steps ▾
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Type your email and click 'Next'. Make sure you provide your real name as UpHold will need it for account and identity verification. Choose a strong password so that your account isn't vulnerable to hackers.

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You will receive a confirmation email. Open it and click on the link within. You will then be required to provide a valid mobile number to set up two-factor authentication (2FA), it is an extra layer to the security of your account and it is highly recommended that you keep this feature turned on.

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Follow the next step to finish your identity verification. These steps are a bit daunting especially when you are waiting to buy an asset but just like any other financial institutions, UpHold is regulated in most countries such as the US, the UK and the EU. You can take this as a trade-off to using a trusted platform to make your first crypto purchase. Good news is that the whole so-called Know-Your-Customers (KYC) process is now fully automated and it shouldn't take more than 15 minutes to finish.

Step 2: Buy ETH with fiat money

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Once you finished the KYC process. You will be asked to add a payment method. Here you can either choose to provide a credit/debit card or use a bank transfer. You may be charged higher fees depending on your credit card company and the volatile prices when using cards but you will also make an instant purchase. While a bank transfer will be cheaper but slower, depending on the country of your residence, some countries will offer instant cash deposit with low fees.

OXY

Now you are all set, on the 'Transact' screen under the 'From' field, select your fiat currency, and then on the 'To' field choose Ethereum, click preview to review your transaction and the click confirm if everything looks good... and congrats! You've just made your first crypto purchase.

Step 3: Transfer ETH to an Altcoin Exchange

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But we are not done yet, since OXY is an altcoin we need to transfer our ETH to an exchange that OXY can be traded, here we will use Gate.io as our exchange. Gate.io is a popular exchange to trade altcoins and it has a large number of tradable altcoins pairs. Use the link below to register your new account.

Gate.io is an American cryptocurrency exchange that launched 2017. As the exchange is American, US-investors can of course trade here and we recommend US traders to sign up on this exchange. The exchange is available both in English and Chinese (the latter being very helpful for Chinese investors). Gate.io’s main selling factor is their wide selection of trading pairs. You can find most of the new altcoins here. Gate.io also demonstrates an impressive trading volume. It is almost every day one of the top 20 exchanges with the highest trading volume. The trading volume amounts to approx. USD 100 million on a daily basis. The top 10 trading pairs on Gate.io in terms of trading volume usually have USDT (Tether) as one part of the pair. So, to summarize the foregoing, Gate.io’s vast number of trading pairs and its extraordinary liquidity are both very impressive aspects of this exchange.

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After going through a similar process as we've done before with UpHold, you will be advised to set up 2FA authentication as well, finish it as it adds extra security to your account.

Step 4: Deposit ETH to exchange

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Depends on the policies of the exchange you might be required to go through another KYC process, this should usually take you from 30 minutes to possibly a few days maximum. Though the process should be straight-forward and easy to follow. Once you're done with it you should have full access to your exchange wallet.

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If this is your first time making a crypto deposit, the screen here may look a bit scary. But don't worry, it's basically simpler than making a bank transfer. At the box on the right, you will see a string of random numbers saying 'ETH address', this is a unique public address of your ETH wallet at Gate.io and you can receive ETH by giving this address to the person to send you the funds. Since we are now transferring our previously bought ETH on UpHold to this wallet, click on 'Copy Address' or right-click on the full address and click copy to grab this address to your clipboard.

Now head back to UpHold, go to the Transact screen and click on ETH on the "From" field, choose the amount you wan to send and on the "To" field choose ETH under "Crypto Network", then click "Preview withdraw".

On the next screen, paste the wallet address from your clipboard, for security consideration you should always check if both addresses are matching. It is known that there are certain computer malware that would alter the content in your clipboard into another wallet address and you will be essentially sending funds to another person.

After reviewing, click 'Confirm' to proceed, you should receive a confirmation email instantly, click on the confirmation link in the email and your coins are on the way to Gate.io!

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Now go back to Gate.io and head to your exchange wallets, don't worry if you haven't seen your deposit here. It is probably still being verified in the blockchain network and it should take a few minutes for your coins to arrive. Depending on the network traffic condition of the Ethereum network, during busy times it may take even longer.

You should receive a confirmation notification from Gate.io once your ETH has arrived. And you are now finally ready to purchase OXY!

Step 5: Trade OXY

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Go back to Gate.io, then go to 'Exchange'. Boom! What a view! The constantly flicking figures might be a bit scary, but relax, let's get our heads around this.

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In the right column there is a search bar, now make sure "ETH" is selected as we are trading ETH to altcoin pair. Click on it and type in "OXY", you should see OXY/ETH, select that pair and you should see a price chart of OXY/ETH in the middle of the page.

Below there is a box with a green button that says "Buy OXY", inside of the box, choose the "Market" tab here as that is the most straight-forward type of buying orders. You can either type in your amount or choose what portion of your ETH deposit you would like to spend on buying, by clicking on the percentage buttons. When you have confirmed everything, click "Buy OXY". Voila! You have finally bought OXY!

Last Step: Store OXY securely in hardware wallets

Ledger Nano S

Ledger Nano S

  • Easy to set up and friendly interface
  • Can be used on desktops and laptops
  • Lightweight and Portable
  • Support most blockchains and wide range of (ERC-20/BEP-20) tokens
  • Multiple languages available
  • Built by a well-established company found in 2014 with great chip security
  • Affordable price
Ledger Nano X

Ledger Nano X

  • More powerful secure element chip (ST33) than Ledger Nano S
  • Can be used on desktop or laptop, or even smartphone and tablet through Bluetooth integration
  • Lightweight and Portable with built-in rechargeable battery
  • Larger screen
  • More storage space than Ledger Nano S
  • Support most blockchains and wide range of (ERC-20/BEP-20) tokens
  • Multiple languages available
  • Built by a well-established company found in 2014 with great chip security
  • Affordable price

If you are planning to keep("hodl" as some may say, basically misspelt "hold" which get popularised over time) your OXY for a considerable long time, you may want to explore ways of keeping it safe, although Binance is one of the safest cryptocurrency exchange there had been hacking incidents and funds were lost. Because of the very nature of the wallets in exchanges, they will be always online("Hot Wallets" as we call them), therefore exposing certain aspects of vulnerabilities. The safest way of storing your coins to date is always putting them into a type of "Cold Wallets", where the wallet will only have access to the blockchain(or simply "go online") when you send out funds, reducing the chances of hacking incidents. A paper wallet is a type of free cold wallet, it's basically an offline-generated pair of public and private address and you will have it written somewhere, and keep it safe. However, it is not durable and is susceptible to various hazards.

Hardware wallet here is definitely a better option of cold wallets. They are usually USB-enabled devices that store the key information of your wallet in a more durable way. They are built with military-level security and their firmware are constantly maintained by their manufacturers and thus extremely safe. Ledger Nano S and Ledger Nano X and are the most popular options in this category, these wallets cost around $50 to $100 depending on the features they are offering. If you are holding your assets these wallets are a good investment in our opinion.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I buy OXY with cash?

There is no direct way to buy OXY with cash. However, you can use marketplaces such as LocalBitcoins to first purchase ETH, and finish the rest of the steps by transferring your ETH to respective AltCoin exchanges.

LocalBitcoins is a peer-to-peer Bitcoin exchange. It is a marketplace where users can buy and sell Bitcoins to and from each other. Users, called traders, create advertisements with the price and the payment method they want to offer. You can choose to buy from sellers from a certain nearby region on the platform. is after all a good place to go to buy Bitcoins when you can't find your desired payment methods anywhere else. But prices are usually higher on this platform and you have to do your due diligence to avoid getting scammed.

Are there any quick ways to buy OXY in Europe?

Yes, in fact, Europe is one of the easiest places to buy cryptos in general. There are even online banks which you can simply open an account and transfer money to exchanges such as Coinbase and Uphold.

Are there any alternative platforms to buy OXY or Bitcoin with credit cards?

Yes. is also a very easy to use platform for buying Bitcoin with credit cards. It is an instant cryptocurrency exchange that allows you to exchange crypto fast and buy it with a bank card. Its user interface is very easy to use and the buying steps are pretty self-explanatory.

Read more on Oxygen's fundamentals and current price here.

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