March 5 - OKX, counted among the largest cryptocurrency trading platforms globally, received a minority investment from Intercontinental Exchange, the NYSE parent, that values the exchange at $25 billion, the companies said on Thursday.
The financing places OKX above recent market entrants such as Bullish and Gemini in terms of private-market valuations and signals growing participation by established Wall Street firms in digital-asset infrastructure.
Under the strategic arrangement, ICE will obtain a license to use OKX’s spot cryptocurrency price feeds and will introduce U.S.-regulated futures contracts based on that pricing. In turn, OKX is slated to become a distributor of ICE’s U.S. futures and tokenized equities markets, extending access to more than 120 million people around the world.
The investment follows ICE’s recent stake in Polymarket, a leading prediction market, underscoring a broader push by the NYSE parent into various corners of digital markets.
"There was a time window to get Clarity done. It’s looking more and more challenging as time goes by and we get closer to midterms. Maybe we should have accepted the market structure bill and then pushed amendments later on," OKX Global Managing Partner Haider Rafique said.
Analysts quoted in coverage of the transaction have suggested the crypto sector could be at an inflection point that might herald an end to the bear market, referencing political signals such as U.S. President Donald Trump’s stated support for the Clarity Act bill earlier in the week.
While regulatory frameworks continue to evolve, other industry developments were noted alongside the ICE-OKX tie-up. Kraken’s banking unit secured access to the Federal Reserve’s payments system on Wednesday through a limited-purpose account, becoming the first U.S. digital-asset bank to obtain that type of access. That move represents a notable step for an industry that has long sought connectivity to the Fed’s payment rails.
"I think it’s very likely we will go in that direction in the future, and I hope it doesn’t take us six years to do it," Rafique added, reflecting on broader industry access to payment infrastructure.
ICE, an early backer of Coinbase, will take a seat on OKX’s board under the terms of the investment. Specific financial terms and other transactional details were not disclosed.
Separately, the announcement has prompted investor-facing commentary about whether ICE is an attractive buy. One service, ProPicks AI, states that it evaluates ICE and thousands of other companies monthly using more than 100 financial metrics, aiming to surface stock ideas by assessing fundamentals, momentum, and valuation without bias. The service cites past notable winners including Super Micro Computer (+185%) and AppLovin (+157%). It also invites readers to check whether ICE appears in current strategies or if alternative opportunities exist in the same sector.