OKCoin expands its reach in the US

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Cryptocurrency exchange OKCoin has announced that it is expanding its operations to 20 more states in the U.S., after launching in California last July.

In a blog post, OKCoin Vice President for Marketing Jim Nguyen said, “California was just the beginning. After launching a Fiat-to-Token trading platform in the golden state earlier this summer, OKCoin’s surge into the US markets took another leap forward today, as we announced our expansion into 20 new states with token-to-token trading.”

The exchange provides trading in Bitcoin Cash (BCH), as well as cryptocurrencies BTC, ETH, ETC and LTC. The 20 states now served by OKCoin are: Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Wisconsin.

In the same post, OKCoin CEO Tim Buyn was quoted as saying, “In order for the cryptocurrency market to reach its full potential, exchanges like OKCoin have to work with existing and new regulators for convertible virtual currency, digital goods, and/or securities. Our team has worked diligently within the complexities of the U.S. regulatory frameworks.”

As part of the company’s efforts to meet both federal and state requirements, Nguyen said they were applying for money transmittal licenses (MTLs), for both token-to-token and fiat-to-token trading. “We will prudently open up trading in additional states once we obtain either an MTL or clarity that token-to-token trading is permissible,” he said.

OKCoin’s founder Star Xu, who also founded the exchange OKEx, was arrested early this week in Shanghai, China, for digital currency fraud. However, the fraud in question has to do not with OKCoin or OKEx, but with company WFEE, of which Xu is a stakeholder. He was released shortly after, with the fraud being traced to Beijing.

The company has offices in China, Japan, South Korea, Luxembourg, Hong Kong and Malta. Its expansion to the U.S. comes after many hurdles in its China operations, involving halts to yuan-denominated trading last year.