Leading cryptocurrency exchange, OKX, has announced it will end its digital trading services in Hong Kong by the end of this month. The decision to withdraw their application for a virtual asset trading license in Hong Kong was borne from an extensive evaluation of prospective business development opportunities. Although trading services will cease from May 31st, existing customers will retain their withdrawal privileges, and OKX’s self-hosted web3 wallet will persist in serving its client base.
OKX becomes one among ten other cryptocurrency exchanges that have retracted their applications for a trading platform license in this special administrative region. Another notable name in this list is HTX, a trading giant affiliated with Justin Sun, which withdrew its application in late February. Although it reapplied soon after, it ultimately rescinded its application once again earlier this month as reported by South China Morning Post (SCMP).
Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission (SFC), the region’s financial regulator, has so far issued licenses to only two crypto trading platforms. Meanwhile, 18 other exchanges remain in line, awaiting decisions on their respective applications. These developments follow Hong Kong’s imposition of new cryptocurrency exchange regulations in June last year, which several digital asset stakeholders argue unfairly burden trading platforms according to another SCMP report.
Situated in Seychelles, and occupying the third-largest position among crypto exchanges in terms of 24-hour trading volume, OKX follows closely behind Binance and Bybit, as per data from CoinGecko.