OKX is looking to expand its services beyond trading and transform into a broader financial technology provider. On Monday, former New York governor Andrew M. Cuomo joined the exchange’s board as a government-linked advisor to help OKX develop the next leg of its regulatory strategy and blockchain services.
The announcement follows a major June deal where OKX joined forces with NYSE parent Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) to merge TradFi and crypto assets. At the time, Cuomo was appointed as the co-chair of the ICE–OKX Joint Venture alongside ICE Senior Vice President Trabue Bland.
“As we build OKX into the infrastructure layer for both traditional and digital finance, we need people who understand how governments, institutions and markets actually think. That’s exactly what he brings,” Xu said as he announced the development.
It is likely that Cuomo will play a key role in shaping up services that will position OKX as a broad-range financial platform. The exchange essentially plans to let investors be fluid between conventional markets like stocks and futures as well as crypto from within one platform.
This is the primary concept behind designing the ICE–OKX Joint Venture. While ICE would bring deep expertise in futures trading and equity infrastructure to the table, OKX would contribute with a global reach consisting of its userbase of over 120 million users.
“The venture pairs ICE’s exchange and data infrastructure with our onchain and self-custody rails, giving institutional investors new access to tokenized products,” OKX said.
Now that the exchange is moving towards traditional finance, aiming to combine it with digital finance, it said Cuomo’s experience would be crucial in keeping things aligned with the regulatory landscape around fintech services.
Cuomo has been working with OKX since 2023. For over last two years, he had been assisting the exchange with U.S.-focussed regulatory and institutional strategy.
Commenting on joining the OKX board, the 69-year-old politician affiliated to the Democratic party said, “Blockchain and tokenization have the potential to make markets faster, more efficient, and more accessible. That’s why I’m proud to join the OKX Board.”
Between 1997 and 2021, Cuomo held key leadership roles at both the federal and state levels in the U.S. His public career included serving as U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, New York State Attorney General, and the 56th Governor of New York.
In 2021, the 68-year-old resigned as the governor of New York following widespread sexual misconduct allegations. Formal findings against Cuomo from agencies like the New York State Attorney General and the DoJ have concluded that Cuomo subjected at least 13 women to a sexually hostile work environment where top staff retaliated against accusers. Cuomo has repeatedly denied being involved in sexual misconducts.
