OKX hires the architect of the BitLicense it never won

Yesterday, crypto exchange OKX appointed to its board Andrew Cuomo — the New York governor whose administration created the BitLicense that OKX never received.

Maybe that’s what it takes to finally get that state license.

Cuomo and his administration created the BitLicense back in 2014, and OKX, the world’s fourth largest crypto exchange, has been chasing one ever since.

However, despite having well over a decade to apply, OKX still doesn’t appear on the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) register. Somewhat embarrassingly, competitors, including Coinbase, Gemini, Mastercard, MoonPay, and other crypto companies, do.

With yesterday’s news, however, the path for OKX to win its approval might finally have opened up.

Tough to get, even for the world’s fourth largest crypto exchange

The license is famously difficult to obtain.

Kraken, facing the same daunting application in 2015, called the BitLicense “a creature so foul, so cruel that not even Kraken possesses the courage or strength to face its nasty, big, pointy teeth” and left the state. 

Fortune, for context, reported that the BitLicense’s first three years of availability produced just four licensees.

OKX founder Star Xu boasted that Cuomo’s new board seat will help him build “the world’s most trustworthy large digital asset exchange.” This is something that could take some work.

Indeed, between 2018 and early 2024, US customers conducted more than $1 trillion worth of transactions through OKX, even though OKX’s official policy at that time prohibited US persons from transacting on the exchange.

In fact, one OKX employee advised an American in 2023: “I know you’re in the US, but you could just put a random country and it should go through.”

For its part, OKX blamed the episode on “legacy compliance gaps.”

Read more: Flaws in New York regulator’s BitLicense operation prompt action

OKX gets Cuomo plus a BitLicense enforcement superintendent

While Cuomo is certainly OKX’s most influential BitLicense-related hire, he’s not the first.

Bloomberg previously reported that Cuomo, then a paid OKX adviser regarding the federal probe, had urged the exchange to add former NYDFS superintendent Linda Lacewell to its board.

Around that time, lo and behold, Lacewell joined OKX and even became the exchange’s chief legal officer by March 2025, five weeks after OKX’s guilty plea.

The company said her promotion would “bolster our global regulatory presence and reinforce OKX’s position as a licensing juggernaut.”

The NYDFS is the agency that granted the BitLicense OKX does not have.

‘Certain regulatory approvals’ are forthcoming

In June 2026, Intercontinental Exchange, owner of the New York Stock Exchange, announced a 50/50 joint venture with OKX, co-chaired by Cuomo.

The venture expects to operate a US broker-dealer and futures firm, pending “certain regulatory approvals.”

Those “certain regulatory approvals” aren’t difficult to imagine.

Cuomo said in the release, “The next chapter of financial markets will be defined by how well innovation and government regulation can move forward together.”

Well, the chapter before this one ended in a guilty plea for OKX for New York financial misconduct. The next one probably will not, if Cuomo can help.

A BitLicense application costs $5,000 while operating an unlicensed money transmitting business in New York and other states cost OKX more than $500 million in federal penalties.

What OKX is paying the two New Yorkers who oversaw that licensing regime, the company hasn’t disclosed.

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