OKX & ICE announce strategic alliance and investment to boost digital markets infrastructure

ICE will license OKX cryptocurrency spot prices and launch regulated futures in the US. OKX will give its 120 million account base access to ICE futures markets and tokenized NYSE stocks. Both companies will evaluate a joint venture to bring the OKX and ICE markets to US-based customers. The alliance advances ICE’s strategy of developing on-chain infrastructure for trading, settlement, custody and capital formation.

Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE: ICE), one of the world’s leading providers of financial markets technology and data that powers global capital markets—including the New York Stock Exchange—today announced a strategic relationship and investment in OKX, a blockchain and trading technology company serving more than 120 million people worldwide.

ICE’s investment reflects a valuation of OKX of $25 billion. Terms of the investment were not disclosed.

A new architecture for global markets

In conjunction with the investment, ICE will have a seat on OKX’s Board of Directors and establish a strategic collaboration to leverage OKX’s proven blockchain infrastructure and global reach, along with ICE’s world-class markets technology, regulatory frameworks and institutional community.

The companies plan to evaluate joint initiatives in areas such as market structure design, clearing and risk management, data and institutional access to digital assets, including:

Regulated Cryptocurrency Futures: ICE will license OKX’s cryptocurrency spot prices and launch US-regulated futures contracts linked to those markets, providing institutions with a reliable, regulation-compliant avenue to gain exposure to digital assets.

Global distribution: Subject to regulatory approval, OKX will provide access to ICE’s US futures markets and NYSE tokenized equity markets, allowing native users of OKX’s crypto ecosystem regulated access to some of the world’s most iconic financial markets.

Institutional level digital infrastructure: The relationship will seek to advance compensation and risk management solutions, multichain custody and wallet architecture, as well as the structural connectivity necessary for institutions to confidently participate in digital asset markets.

“Our strategic relationship with OKX will expand the retail public’s global access to ICE’s leading regulated markets and accelerate our plans to deliver on-chain infrastructure and tokenized assets to investors in the US,” said Jeffrey C. Sprecher, President and CEO of ICE. “Star has created a highly successful company, with enormous distribution capacity that will now connect the NYSE and ICE markets with the OKX customer base, marking an exciting new stage for both vectors of finance.”

“This relationship brings together OKX’s digital asset execution stack and ICE’s regulated markets technology—operators of two high-performance matching engines and transparent order books—to help build a more reliable market structure that connects digital assets and equities, strengthens cross-market price formation, and meets institutional risk and compliance standards,” said Star Xu, founder and CEO of OKX.

OKX operates under licensing frameworks in various jurisdictions, including the United States, Europe, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore and Australia. OKX has built a trading infrastructure that has processed trillions of dollars in trading volume, along with a multichain on-chain ecosystem, wallet technology and developer tools that enable participation in both centralized and open markets. OKX also operates an institutional trading and custody business, as well as a global payments business.

ICE’s minority stake in the OKX group is not expected to have a material impact on ICE’s financial results for 2026 or its capital return plans.