Last summer, Haider Rafique flew out to Atlanta to meet with the chairman of the company that owns the New York Stock Exchange. What was supposed to be a 30-minute chat turned into a four-hour marathon conversation, recalled Rafique, the global managing partner of corporate affairs at OKX, one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges.
Fast-forward a few months and what started as an informal chat became a series of meetings, intense due diligence, and eventually a mammoth deal. Intercontinental Exchange, the publicly-traded parent of the New York Stock Exchange, has invested in OKX at a $25 billion valuation and will take a seat on OKX’s board, the two firms announced on Thursday. Rafique declined to specify how much money Intercontinental Exchange put into OKX or the terms of the investment, but did tout the firms’ shared vision of the future.
