OKX has no plans to rush into the public markets in the United States, even as the crypto exchange moves deeper into global expansion and token finance.
“We will go public when we are confident that we can return value to shareholders,” Haider Rafique, the company’s managing director and chief marketing officer, said in a conversation at the Digital Asset Summit in New York on Thursday. “If we’re not confident we can do that, I don’t think we’ll want to go into the public markets.”
The position comes as OKX recently secured a strategic investment tied to Intercontinental Exchange, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, in a deal valuing the company at $25 billion. Rafique said the company intentionally priced the cycle conservatively. “I think we have undervalued ourselves when you look at our revenue growth, when you look at our licenses and our assets,” he said, adding that the move was “very intentional” and linked to long-term shareholder returns.
The comments reflect a broader concern about the performance of crypto companies in the public markets. Rafique highlighted at least one major listing that has struggled since its IPO. “I bought a stock…and that stock has a negative yield of 50%,” he said. “It’s not a good thing. It’s actually bad for the category.”
Although he did not name the company, Coinbase (COIN) – the largest US-listed crypto exchange – has faced volatility since its 2021 debut and is currently trading nearly 50% below its IPO price. Other crypto-related 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 harm the industry. “If we treat IPO the same way we treated ICOs and the 5 million tokens that came to 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 world’s largest cryptocurrency trading platforms, particularly in the derivatives space, where Rafique said it ranks among the top sites. Unlike its US competitors such as Coinbase and Kraken, OKX operates in multiple regions including Europe, Latin America and Asia, giving it a broader liquidity base.
This global footprint is at the heart of its strategy as it eyes further expansion in the United States. Rafique said international trading brings structural benefits, including greater liquidity across time zones. “Our unified order book becomes a very important competitive advantage,” he said, particularly outside of U.S. market hours.
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 integrate stocks and other traditional assets on-chain, with OKX acting as a distribution layer for these products.
For now, however, Rafique said the focus remains on construction before listing. “We’re going to build this business over 20, 30 years,” he said, describing the IPO decision as one related to sustainability rather than timing.
