Inside OKX's Strategic Shifts to Its Regulatory Approach, Formula 1 Branding and App Design

Singapore – Crypto exchange OKX has taken a turn of sorts over the past few months. It is rethinking its strategy in three major areas; the look and tech aspects of its application, its approach toward regulation and expansion, and its brand strategy as the primary partner of McLaren Formula 1 Team, OKX CMO Haider Rafique told CoinDesk in an interview.

Rafique revealed the behind the scenes action at OKX in the past year at the unveiling of a limited-edition livery design on the McLaren MCL38 F1 race cars as Singapore gears up for its Grand Prix this weekend.

The race stands out in the F1 calendar as it indirectly acts as an advertisement for the region. The fastest cars in the world zip past buildings hosting financial institutions, such as DBS and Standard Chartered, both of whom are involved in the crypto ecosystem.

The design, titled Legend Reborn, celebrated the iconic MP4 era of McLaren, from 1981 to 1996, honoring its legends Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost and Niki Lauda.

"When we shopped McLaren, they were team number eight on the grid. A lot of people asked the obvious question, was that the right move? Now leading the 2024 Constructors Standings," said Rafique. McLaren last won the constructors' championship, one of the two world championships contested in Formula 1, in 1998. This year, currently, it is in the lead.

"People go there to watch the sport, not to look at a crypto commercial," Rafique said. "We should be a brand less about pushing our logo and services and more about helping people get into F1. That's the better way to win hearts and minds and have better recall on our logo exposure."

In terms of the app design Haider said while we had "rebranded two years ago, we hadn't done our product justice as the design was quite behind."

Predicting that OKX would be "one of the largest web three technology companies," Haider said the company had been quietly working to redesign the look on its app, bringing in new tech aspects making its Web3 and trading experience from the "very black and white brand visually" to appear as a "deep technology brand."

Haider also revealed OKX's shift in its thinking toward regulation by narrowing its focus.

"We find ourselves in a really unique place. We have been largely known as an offshore exchange, in terms of market perception given where we started, where we have largest market share. But the facts are that now, actually, if you look at the last 12 to 15 months of our company history, we are now becoming more onshore than perhaps any global exchange our size," Haider said.

While OKX did pull out of India after planning to enter the region, it has secured regulatory victories in Australia and Singapore, which in particular took more than four years, part of which was the "most difficult," OKX's CEO revealed earlier. Additionally, OKX has hired teams and is offering their products in Brazil, Argentina, Netherlands and Turkey.

Plans are afoot for more regulatory victories where efforts had been made for years, Haider said

"The decision was to put all our energy in making sure we get the licenses where we invested the most in, otherwise it's just millions of dollars wasted."