NYSE owner ICE and crypto exchange OKX have announced a 50/50 ICE OKX joint venture designed to give OKX customers round-the-clock access to tokenized NYSE shares and ICE futures. Co-chair of the ICE OKX joint venture is former governor Andrew Cuomo.
ICE (Intercontinental Exchange) is the Fortune 500 exchange operator behind the New York Stock Exchange, several futures exchanges and mortgage technology platforms, with a market value of roughly USD 79.9 billion. OKX likewise ranks among the largest crypto trading platforms worldwide, operates in more than 200 countries and generated revenue of USD 1.9 billion in 2024. As early as March 2026, ICE had acquired a minority stake in OKX for roughly USD 200 million at a valuation of USD 25 billion, thereby gaining a board seat. The venture, provisionally named OKXICE, was unveiled on 22 June 2026, with the rollout planned for the second half of 2026. The second co-chair alongside Cuomo is Trabue Bland, Senior Vice President of Futures Exchanges at ICE. Furthermore, the venture is set to operate as a US-registered broker-dealer and futures commission merchant, subject to approvals from the SEC and CFTC.
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Broker-dealer, FCM and NYSE shares around the clock
The planned venture aims to give OKX customers at home and abroad access to ICE futures and tokenized NYSE shares. At its core sits a continuously tradable infrastructure for blockchain-based financial products, designed to run seven days a week. OKXICE intends to operate as a regulated broker-dealer under SEC supervision and as a futures commission merchant under CFTC supervision. However, both authorizations are still pending, so the launch depends on the pace of the regulators. As a result, the venture addresses the communicated base of 120 million users, for whom it would open a regulated path into US securities and futures.
That Cuomo is taking on the co-leadership is no random pick. As governor of New York, he founded the Department of Financial Services in 2011 by merging the banking and insurance divisions. Today, the agency oversees more than 3,000 financial institutions with nearly USD 10 trillion in total assets. In addition, his administration mandated the drafting of crypto rules in 2013, which produced the BitLicense in 2015, the first state crypto license in the US. Cuomo therefore knows the regulatory apparatus that OKXICE must navigate from the inside. At the same time, he explicitly positions the project not as a crypto venture but as an application of blockchain to other assets. Nevertheless, Cuomo had resigned as governor in 2021 following allegations of sexual harassment, which he denies, and lost the New York mayoral race against Zohran Mamdani in 2025.
ICE's second attempt with this joint venture after Bakkt
ICE has tried this structural model once before. In August 2018, the exchange operator founded the crypto company Bakkt together with Microsoft, Starbucks and the Boston Consulting Group, which raised USD 182.5 million in its first funding round. In September 2019, Bakkt launched physically settled bitcoin futures through ICE Futures U.S., the first institutional crypto futures contract of its kind in the US. However, the start was sluggish: on the first trading day, only 71 bitcoin changed hands, worth roughly USD 700,000 at the time. By 2022, cumulative GAAP losses had mounted to more than USD 1 billion, and the SPAC listing on the NYSE in October 2021 did little to change that.
With OKXICE, ICE brings the same regulated market infrastructure to the table, though this time with a ready customer base rather than a purely institutional focus. Whereas Bakkt first had to build its user base, OKX contributes a declared reach of 120 million people. In addition, the regulatory environment is considerably more favorable than in 2018. Under the Trump administration, the SEC's stance toward crypto has shifted, the GENIUS Act created a framework for stablecoins for the first time, and the broader CLARITY Act is under negotiation in Congress. The established players are likewise moving: NYSE and DTCC announced a joint blockchain trading platform for 24/7 stock and ETF trading in January 2026. Moreover, Kraken gained access to the Fed's payment infrastructure, and NASDAQ entered a blockchain partnership. The industry trend therefore confirms the direction OKXICE is heading.
OKX after a 504 million dollar penalty
For OKX, the venture closes a gap rooted in the exchange's recent US history. In 2025, the platform first pleaded guilty to violating anti-money laundering laws. It therefore paid more than USD 504 million in penalties for having processed transactions of US customers without a license. The FBI and prosecutors from the Southern District of New York led the investigation. Following the settlement, OKX relaunched its US operations in April 2025 and moved its headquarters to San Jose, California. Later, by June 2026, the company had submitted 43 consecutive monthly proof-of-reserves reports, independently verified by the audit provider Hacken.
Cuomo had already advised OKX as a paid adviser starting in 2023, that is, while the DOJ investigation was still ongoing, and now moves to the top of the venture. The regulatory tailwind does the rest, after the Trump administration dropped SEC lawsuits against Coinbase and other exchanges. For OKX, therefore, the joint venture structure delivers precisely the regulated access to the US market that was still missing in 2025. As part of the deal, the platform additionally licenses its spot crypto prices to ICE, which can thereby launch US-regulated crypto futures products. Consequently, OKX serves its US clientele through a regulated partner without bearing the execution risk itself.
Tokenized shares as a billion-dollar market with a head-start problem
OKXICE is entering a market that is growing but already has clear leaders. The on-chain held volume of tokenized shares reached a total of USD 1.56 billion in June 2026. The market leader is Ondo Finance with 405 tokenized securities and USD 931.6 million, equivalent to a share of roughly 58 percent. Behind it follows xStocks from Backed Finance with 169 securities and USD 514.4 million, a good 32 percent. Moreover, Ondo Finance crossed the USD 1 billion total value locked (TVL) mark in less than eight months after its launch in September 2025. At the same time, tokenized shares generated roughly USD 15.1 billion in spot trading volume in the first quarter of 2026. Overall, the RWA market excluding stablecoins grew to about USD 29 billion, up from USD 7.9 billion at the end of 2024.
Against this competition, OKXICE enters without any head start. However, neither Ondo nor xStocks has NYSE data access and ICE infrastructure, which could prove to be the central differentiator for the venture. The bottleneck, though, lies not on the demand side but with the regulators. As long as the SEC's broker-dealer authorization and the CFTC's FCM authorization remain pending, the launch date stays open. Ultimately, regulatory approval will decide whether OKXICE can close the gap on the established providers.
