OKX is one of the major crypto platforms that operates almost globally and is now increasingly targeting the European market. „We have been live in Germany for a good three weeks and are now gradually ramping up our services. For us, Germany is a key market in Europe alongside Poland, France, Spain and the Netherlands. We are taking a very targeted approach to expansion and want to roll out our global services locally, for which a functioning e-governance structure for on-boarding is advantageous, as well as a payment infrastructure that can be easily integrated. And that's what we observe in Germany,“ says Erald Ghoos, Head of Europe, in an interview with Börsen-Zeitung.

Ghoos is well versed in payments, having held various positions in banking before becoming Global Head of Operations at Paysafe, an e-money institution. He entered the crypto industry in 2017 when he joined Crypto.com in Hong Kong as Chief Operating Officer and Chief Compliance Officer. In the meantime, he was Head of Growth for Europe at Binance before finding his new spot at OKX. With its roots in Hong Kong, OKX has a strong presence in Asia and processes a daily volume of more than 4 billion dollars for almost 19 million customers. The holding company is based in the Seychelles and the operating subsidiaries have their own licences for each jurisdiction.

The EU head office has been located in Malta since 2018. OKX was authorised there as a Virtual Financial Assets Service Provider (VASP) in 2021. The next major milestone followed in January, when OKX was one of the first international crypto traders to receive the Micar licence and is now carrying it into the countries via passporting. „We have employees in Munich, Frankfurt and Hamburg, but they will all remain geographically distributed in remote work. In this constellation, we can meet the special German needs well, including other things with regard to regulatory requirements such as data protection and tailoring financial products to suit investor behaviour in Germany.“

In its European strategy, OKX did not follow the lead of its competitors, who pursued customers via registrations in a regulation-light model. „We decided to first complete our setup by acquiring licences and then go into the rollout on that basis. It can already be observed that not all providers are able to cope with the increased regulatory costs, which is likely to soon lead to a certain degree of consolidation. We have already been offered a number of M&A opportunities, but for the time being we prefer to focus on organic growth,“ says the OKX Head of Europe.

OKX ultimately wants to be one of the big three digital asset trading centres in Europe - which as things stand today probably includes Bitpanda and Coinbase. However, US providers such as Kraken are also pushing into the EU market - and if heavyweight Binance were to obtain its Micar licence soon, this would certainly be flanked by an offensive. OKX is already one step ahead with the acquisition of a Mifid2 licence. According to Ghoos, the regulatory framework is a certain hurdle for new entrants. „In addition, the large licence regime will also force out unsuitable market participants, which is good for industry hygiene,“ says Ghoos.

OKX is currently working with its Mifid licence on so-called perpetual futures, which are very popular with investors resembling simple futures market contracts without an expiry date. „In an initial phase, we only want to introduce this for institutional investors and are currently finalising the product together with the regulator. Later, we will also make perpetual futures available to retail investors.“ The combination of spot and futures trading is the classic setup for professional and semi-professional investors. The Deribit acquisition by Coinbase in May showed just how fundamental this is. The purchase of what is probably the largest crypto-derivatives trader cost the company 2.9 billion dollars.

Ghoos believes OKX is well equipped in the battle for new customers: The so-called „maker order“, which is usually placed as a limit order, is cheaper than with many other providers, with fees of 0.08%. With its fee structure, OKX should be able to attract volume. Added to this are services such as staking. What Ghoos is initially only taking note of is the introduction of tokenised shares into trading. Robinhood recently launched this for European customers, who can now trade tokenised US shares. These are probably only subscription rights, or rather ADRs (share certificates). Ghoos says he wants to explore the topic of tokenised shares further. OKX will by no means take any regulatory shortcuts.

Ghoos only shrugs his shoulders at the rumours already circulating about an OKX IPO. „It's too early to really think about it. There is no timeline for this and no concrete plans yet, even though we are of course keeping such a step open for the future with our business and licences. I think these rumours came up when OKX repositioned its US business, which then sparked the imagination of some market participants.“