Crypto Exchanges
By Pankaj K
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The License Nobody Wants to Apply For. The BitLicense has a reputation. It's not just hard to get — it's hard enough that Kraken, one of…
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Lacewell Came First, Then Cuomo. Cuomo isn't the first person with direct BitLicense ties to land at OKX.
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What OKX Is Actually Betting On. The strategy is pretty clear when you lay it out. OKX got hammered federally, pleaded guilty, paid…
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OKX just hired the guy who invented the thing that's been blocking it for over a decade. Andrew Cuomo, former New York governor and the architect of the BitLicense, is now on the…
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It's a bold play. OKX has been chasing a BitLicense since 2014 — that's more than ten years without cracking New York's regulatory wall, while rivals like Coinbase, Gemini, and…
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The application fee for a BitLicense is $5,000.
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The BitLicense has a reputation. It's not just hard to get — it's hard enough that Kraken, one of the bigger names in crypto, walked away from New York entirely in 2015 rather…
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Star Xu, OKX's founder, wants the exchange to become the "world's most trustworthy large digital asset exchange.
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Cuomo didn't appear out of nowhere. He had already been working with OKX as a paid adviser during a federal probe into the company. So his move to the board isn't a cold hire.
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Cuomo isn't the first person with direct BitLicense ties to land at OKX. Linda Lacewell, who served as NYDFS superintendent — basically the top regulator overseeing the…
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Read also: Vietnam Fines Binance and OKX Users Up to $1,900 in Offshore Trading Crackdown
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So now OKX has the person who ran the agency that issues the BitLicense sitting as its chief legal officer, and the governor who created the BitLicense sitting on its board.
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In June 2026, OKX went further. The exchange announced a joint venture with the Intercontinental Exchange — co-chaired by Cuomo — aimed at setting up a U.S.
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The strategy is pretty clear when you lay it out. OKX got hammered federally, pleaded guilty, paid out over $500 million, and now it's rebuilding its U.S.
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It's a different approach than most exchanges take. Most try to hire compliance teams and lawyers and grind through the application process.
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