OKX does not plan to rush into the US public markets, even as the cryptocurrency exchange moves deeper into global expansion and tokenized finance.
“We will go public when we are confident that we can return value to shareholders,” Haider Rafique, the company’s CEO and chief marketing officer, said during a conversation at the Digital Asset Summit in New York on Thursday. “If we’re not sure we can do that, I don’t think there’s any desire for us to enter the public markets.”
The stance comes as OKX recently secured a strategic investment linked to Intercontinental Exchange, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, in a deal that valued the company at $25 billion. Rafique said the company intentionally priced the round conservatively. “I think we underestimated ourselves when we look at our revenue growth, when we look at our licenses and our assets,” he said, adding that the move was “very intentional” and tied to long-term returns for shareholders.
The comments reflect broader concerns about the performance of crypto companies in the public markets. Rafique pointed out at least one major listing that has struggled since going public. “I bought a stock… and that stock has a negative 50% return,” he said. “That’s not a good thing. It’s actually bad for the category.”
While he did not name the company, Coinbase (COIN), the largest US-listed crypto exchange, has faced volatility since its debut in 2021 and is currently trading nearly 50% below its IPO price. Other cryptocurrency-linked listings have also struggled to maintain consistent returns for investors, raising questions about how public markets value the sector.
Rafique warned that repeating past patterns could further damage the industry. “If we treat IPOs the same way we treat ICOs and the 5 million tokens that were put on the market last year… then I think we are doomed as an industry,” he said.
Instead, OKX is positioning itself as a long-term builder. The exchange, founded in Asia, has become one of the largest crypto trading platforms in the world, particularly in derivatives, where Rafique said it is among the top spots. Unlike US-focused rivals like Coinbase and Kraken, OKX operates in multiple regions, including Europe, Latin America, and Asia, giving it a broader liquidity base.
That global footprint is critical to its strategy as it anticipates further expansion in the U.S. Rafique said international exchanges bring structural advantages, including greater liquidity across time zones. “Our unified order book becomes a really strong competitive advantage,” he said, especially after hours in U.S. markets.
The company is also betting on tokenized financial assets and blockchain-based infrastructure as the next phase of growth. Its partnership with ICE is expected to support efforts to bring stocks and other traditional assets onto the chain, with OKX acting as a distribution layer for those products.
For now, however, Rafique said the focus remains on building before going public. “We’re going to build this company in 20 or 30 years,” he said, framing the IPO decision as one tied to durability rather than timing.
