ICE and OKX Form Joint Venture to Connect NYSE Infrastructure to 120 Million Crypto Users
The Intercontinental Exchange and OKX announced on Monday the creation of a 50/50 joint venture designed to combine the infrastructure of the traditional regulated market with the global crypto trading ecosystem – an agreement that puts the owner of the New York Stock Exchange in a direct working relationship with one of the largest crypto exchanges in the world.
The joint venture, subject to regulatory approval, will operate as a registered US broker and futures commission merchant (FCM).
Its main function will be to give OKX’s 120 million customers access to the ICE futures market and NYSE tokenized shares – bringing the world’s capital markets to crypto-native trading venues for the first time on this scale.
The deal is the next step in a partnership that began in March, when ICE made a strategic investment in OKX worth $25 billion and sat on the exchange’s board. That investment set the stage for Monday’s announcement, which moves the two companies from a financial partnership into a joint operating entity.
The JV will be jointly led by ICE and former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who has worked with OKX since 2023.
“This partnership combines OKX’s world-class blockchain technology and ICE’s trusted market infrastructure to help build a modern, transparent, and robust financial system for the future,” Cuomo said in the announcement.
ICE Senior Vice President Trabue Bland put it in terms of market access: “ICE’s global ratings and regulated market technology have earned institutions and traders the trust of everywhere and now, through our partnership with OKX, we are working to expand that reach to OKX’s 120 million retail traders.”
Apart from the main broker and FCM structure, the joint venture will explore what the announcement describes as “imminent opportunities in blockchain regulated markets” – language that leaves the door open for bonds, tokens, commodities, and other asset classes to pursue equity in the shared infrastructure.
OKX has licenses across the US, UAE, European Economic Area, Singapore, and Australia, giving the JV a way to control many incoming crypto-native firms. ICE, on the other hand, operates the most important infrastructure for clarifying and resolving global financial problems, including ICE Clear Credit and ICE Clear Europe.
What does this business mean for bitcoin and crypto
In bitcoin, it means small structure and not fast. ICE already uses the Bakkt platform and has years of experience with bitcoin futures through derivatives markets – and the joint venture that puts the regulated infrastructure of the NYSE in front of OKX’s 120 million users creates one of the largest compliant ways bitcoin exposure has ever been created.
When traditional financial institutions build regulated rails in this market, bitcoin is the primary asset used by those rails, and wide distribution on this scale has historically translated into continued demand.
