OKX has appointed former New York governor Andrew Cuomo to its board, bringing in the politician whose administration created the BitLicense in 2014 even though the exchange still has not secured that New York license.
Protos reported that OKX, described in the article as the world’s fourth largest crypto exchange, has spent years pursuing the approval. Yet the company still does not appear on the New York Department of Financial Services register. Competitors listed by Protos, including Coinbase, Gemini, Mastercard, MoonPay, and other crypto companies, do appear there.
A license with a reputation for being hard to get
The BitLicense has long been known as a difficult approval to obtain. Protos pointed to Kraken’s response in 2015, when the exchange chose to leave New York rather than pursue the application and called the license “a creature so foul, so cruel that not even Kraken possesses the courage or strength to face its nasty, big, pointy teeth.”
For additional context, the report cited Fortune as saying that only four licenses were issued in the first three years after the framework became available.
OKX founder Star Xu said Cuomo’s board appointment will help the company build “the world’s most trustworthy large digital asset exchange.”
Past US compliance issues remain part of the picture
Protos also revisited OKX’s US compliance record. Between 2018 and early 2024, US customers conducted more than $1 trillion in transactions through the exchange, according to the report, even though OKX’s official policy at the time prohibited US persons from transacting on the platform.
The article cited an example from 2023 in which one OKX employee told an American user, “I know you’re in the US, but you could just put a random country and it should go through.” OKX said the episode stemmed from “legacy compliance gaps.”
Cuomo is not the first major BitLicense-linked hire
According to Protos, Cuomo is the most influential BitLicense-related hire made by OKX, but not the first. Bloomberg had previously reported that Cuomo, while serving as a paid adviser to OKX on a federal probe, urged the exchange to add former NYDFS superintendent Linda Lacewell to its board.
Lacewell later joined OKX and by March 2025, five weeks after OKX’s guilty plea, had become the company’s chief legal officer. OKX said at the time that her promotion would “bolster our global regulatory presence and reinforce OKX’s position as a licensing juggernaut.” NYDFS is the agency that grants the BitLicense that OKX does not have.
Joint venture with ICE awaits regulatory approvals
In June 2026, Intercontinental Exchange, the owner of the New York Stock Exchange, announced a 50/50 joint venture with OKX, with Cuomo serving as co-chair. The venture said it expects to operate a US broker-dealer and futures firm, pending “certain regulatory approvals.”
Cuomo said in that release, “The next chapter of financial markets will be defined by how well innovation and government regulation can move forward together.”
Protos also noted that OKX had previously entered a guilty plea tied to New York financial misconduct. The report said 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. The company has not disclosed what it is paying Cuomo and Lacewell.