Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), is looking to debut tokenized stocks in the U.S. market. In a fresh development, the ICE has made a strategic investment in the OKX crypto exchange. With this, the ICE has joined the board of OKX, however the terms of the deal remains undisclosed.
ICE’s investment in OKX has bumped the exchange’s valuation to $25 billion.
The ICE has disclosed that it will license OKX spot crypto prices and launch U.S. regulated futures. OKX, meanwhile, will enable access to ICE’s U.S. futures and NYSE tokenized equities markets to its claimed userbase of 120 million.
Commenting on the development, ICE chairperson and CEO Jeffery C. Sprecher said, “our strategic relationship with OKX will expand global retail access to ICE’s pre-eminent regulated markets and accelerate our plans to offer on-chain infrastructure and tokenized assets to U.S. investors.”
Under the partnership, the ICE and OKX plan on merging their respective market technology with advanced blockchain technology with the aim to upgrade solutions around risk management solutions, multi-chain custody and wallet architecture.
In the near future, OKX CEO Star Xu said, the issuers of tokenized assets would be able to reach the international community of investors via modernized crypto infrastructure.
“Our focus is not simply on new technology, but on building durable infrastructure for the global financial system. This includes improving market structure, strengthening risk management and clearing frameworks, expanding institutional access to digital assets,” Xu said.
Market commentors on social media have started to pointed out that the development marks another milestone in the equation shared between traditional finance and digital assets. The ICE, market participants believe, is directly opening a liquidity pipe from the legacy traditional ecosystem directly into the digital asset sector that presently stands atop the valuation of $2.44 trillion.
This development adds to the inroads that the Wall Street is making into the crypto sector now that U.S. President Donald Trump is making strides in regulating the crypto sector.
In the backdrop of this deal, the native OKB token of the OKX exchange spiked by 45 percent to 55 percent to hit the price point of $120.