A booth of OKX cryptocurrency exchange is seen at Hong Kong Web3 Festival, in Hong Kong
A booth of OKX cryptocurrency exchange is seen at Hong Kong Web3 Festival, in Hong Kong. Reuters

KEY POINTS

  • OKX's global government relations chief, Tim Byun, recently left the company, as per the report
  • Product chief Wei Lan has also departed, the report noted
  • The exchange launched in Turkey and Argentina last month amid regulatory woes in other countries

Two long-time executives of cryptocurrency exchange OKX have left the company amid the exchange's consolidation efforts to place parts of its business under a single brand, a new report revealed.

Tim Byun, OKX's head of global government relations, and Wei Lan, the exchange's product chief, recently left the company, CoinDesk reported Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Byun was formerly the CEO of Okcoin, OKX's U.S. subsidiary, before he became the head of the exchange's government relations unit. Lan, on the other hand, was in charge of most of OKX's trading desk operations, one person familiar with the situation told the outlet.

Months before Byun and Wei's departures, the exchange's global compliance chief, Patrick Donegan, also left the crypto giant after just six months of being in the said position.

OKX has been consolidating parts of its business under a single OKX brand instead of having a separate U.S. arm. Notably, the leading digital asset exchange has been expanding outside the United States.

OKX launched in Turkey late in February. "We are proud to provide Turkish users with a trusted, compliant and transparent gateway to crypto trading and decentralized finance. Currently, the OKX Web3 Wallet is available in Turkiye via our global platform," the company said at the time. Earlier in February, OKX also launched in Argentina, hailing the country as "one of the top crypto markets in Latin America."

Despite recent expansions outside the U.S., the exchange has also been undergoing major changes due to regulatory requirements in some countries.

Just last month, the derivatives exchange halted services in India "due to local regulations." India has been pursuing the cryptocurrency industry and recently placed digital asset service providers under its anti-money laundering (AML) regulations, which means crypto exchanges need to register with the country's Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU IND) and comply with the agency's AML policies.

Also, last month, OKX delisted Tether (USDT) pairs in Europe as the European Union prepared to adopt its sweeping Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA), which includes some of the most stringent regulations for stablecoin issuers. At the time, the company told European users that the delisting was necessary "for us to comply with regulations and uphold the security of our platform."

OKX is currently the world's 10th largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, according to data from Statista. It ranks higher than ZKE, Bitget, BiFinance, and Koinbay.

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