Singapore – Crypto change OKX has taken a flip of types over the previous few months. It’s rethinking its technique in three main areas; the look and tech facets of its software, its method towards regulation and enlargement, and its model technique as the first companion of McLaren System 1 Workforce, OKX CMO Haider Rafique instructed CoinDesk in an interview.
Rafique revealed the behind the scenes motion at OKX previously yr on the unveiling of a limited-edition livery design on the McLaren MCL38 F1 race vehicles as Singapore gears up for its Grand Prix this weekend.
The race stands out within the F1 calendar because it not directly acts as an commercial for the area. The quickest vehicles on the earth zip previous buildings internet hosting monetary establishments, akin to DBS and Customary Chartered, each of whom are concerned within the crypto ecosystem.
The design, titled Legend Reborn, celebrated the long-lasting MP4 period of McLaren, from 1981 to 1996, honoring its legends Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost and Niki Lauda.
“Once we shopped McLaren, they had been crew quantity eight on the grid. Lots of people requested the apparent query, was that the correct transfer? Now main the 2024 Constructors Standings,” mentioned Rafique. McLaren final gained the constructors’ championship, one of many two world championships contested in System 1, in 1998. This yr, at present, it’s within the lead.
“Individuals go there to look at the game, not to have a look at a crypto business,” Rafique mentioned. “We ought to be a model much less about pushing our emblem and providers and extra about serving to folks get into F1. That is the higher option to win hearts and minds and have higher recall on our emblem publicity.”
When it comes to the app design Haider mentioned whereas we had “rebranded two years in the past, we hadn’t performed our product justice because the design was fairly behind.”
Predicting that OKX can be “one of many largest net three know-how firms,” Haider mentioned the corporate had been quietly working to revamp the look on its app, bringing in new tech facets making its Web3 and buying and selling expertise from the “very black and white model visually” to seem as a “deep know-how model.”
Haider additionally revealed OKX’s shift in its considering towards regulation by narrowing its focus.
“We discover ourselves in a extremely distinctive place. We have now been largely generally known as an offshore change, when it comes to market notion given the place we began, the place we’ve largest market share. However the details are that now, really, in the event you have a look at the final 12 to fifteen months of our firm historical past, we are actually changing into extra onshore than maybe any world change our measurement,” Haider mentioned.
Whereas OKX did pull out of India after planning to enter the area, it has secured regulatory victories in Australia and Singapore, which particularly took greater than 4 years, a part of which was the “most troublesome,” OKX’s CEO revealed earlier. Moreover, OKX has employed groups and is providing their merchandise in Brazil, Argentina, Netherlands and Turkey.
Plans are afoot for extra regulatory victories the place efforts had been made for years, Haider mentioned
“The choice was to place all our power in ensuring we get the licenses the place we invested probably the most in, in any other case it is simply thousands and thousands of {dollars} wasted.”