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OKX and NYSE Owner ICE Launch Joint Venture With 120 Million Users in Sight

coindesk.com@wild_osprey3 hours ago·Business & Markets·4 comments

Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo leads a brokerage and futures merchant venture that gives OKX's 120 million users access to ICE futures and NYSE tokenized equities.

okxintercontinental exchangenyseandrew cuomocrypto marketstokenization

120 million users is the number that matters. That is how many accounts OKX claims, and the joint venture between OKX and Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) - owner of the New York Stock Exchange - is designed to give every one of them direct access to ICE futures and NYSE tokenized equities. Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is leading the charge, which means this has political gravity as well as market heft.

Broker-Dealer and FCM Status Is the Real Infrastructure Play

Subject to regulatory approval, the new entity will operate as a U.S.-registered broker-dealer and a futures commission merchant. That is not a press release flourish - it is the legal chassis needed to let a crypto exchange handle traditional derivatives and tokenized securities under one roof. ICE's senior vice president Trabue Bland called it "a step towards building the infrastructure that will define how global markets operate in the decades ahead." I call it the most concrete bridge between the crypto spot world and regulated TradFi I have seen in years.

ICE Has Already Written Big Checks to Back This Thesis

ICE took a strategic investment in OKX back in March at a $25 billion valuation. That is not symbolic money. ICE also backed Bakkt for years and recently dropped $2 billion into Polymarket, valuing that prediction market at up to $10 billion. The pattern is clear: ICE is betting that tokenized equities and crypto-native futures are the next growth vector for their exchange business, not a side project.

Andrew Cuomo: The Regulatory Glue

Cuomo started working with OKX in 2023. His job here is to keep the venture compliant while moving fast. His quote - "the next chapter of financial markets will be defined by how well innovation and government regulation can move forward together" - is exactly the kind of message that gets an SEC or CFTC review to the finish line. Having a former New York governor and attorney general at the helm cuts through a lot of red tape.

The joint venture also plans to explore "adjacent opportunities for regulatory-compliant blockchain-enabled markets." That phrasing leaves room for everything from tokenized bonds to on-chain settlement rails. With 120 million users ready to trade, the first-mover advantage here is enormous. The question now is not whether this will happen - it is how fast the regulators let Cuomo move.

Source: OKX and NYSE partner to bridge tradfi and crypto markets in joint venture led by Andrew Cuomo
Domain: coindesk.com

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