OKEx Founder Reveals OK Group’s Partnership With US Trust Firm, Plan to Launch Stablecoin

Star Xu — founder of exchange services provider OKCoin and the world’s 6th largest crypto exchange OKEx — has announced OK Group’s partnership with blockchain-focused trust company Prime Trust, prospectively allowing the firm to launch its own compliant stablecoin.

The news was revealed in a tweet from Star Xu on March 28, retweeting an earlier March 27 tweet from Prime Trust announcing the partnership.

Star Xu has written that the new partnership will see OK Group undertaking “an in-depth collaboration and offer[ing] diverse, secure and regulatory compliant services with Prime Trust.”

Prime Trust’s earlier tweet on March 27 had explicitly noted OK Group’s reported plans to launch a compliant stablecoin, stating that:

“Prime Trust and OK Group signed a strategic investment agreement this month. OK Group is our lead strategic investor and plans to launch a compliant stablecoin #OKUSD, which will operate  #OKChain in the future @starokcoin”

According to its Twitter profile, Prime Trust is a blockchain-focused trust company that is a qualified crypto and fiat currency custodian and chartered, regulated financial institution, providing compliance services that include AML/KYC checks, funds processing, as well as asset protection for initial coin offerings.

While few details of the planned, compliant OKUSD stablecoin have been revealed, its name apparently points to the likelihood that it will be a USD-pegged asset. As per Prime Trust’s tweet, it will run on the OKChain blockchain — OKEx’s blockchain that is currently in its final development stage, as the exchange had announced earlier this week.

In its recent announcement, the company had said it expects to put out a testnet for OKChain in June of this year, as well as revealing that OKChain will serve as the base for OKEx’s decentralized exchange.

OK Group’s prospective entrance into the rapidly growing stablecoin sector will follow the likes of other compliant USD-pegged assets, such as the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS)-approved Gemini Dollar (GUSD) and Paxos Standard Token (PAX).

In October 2018, OKEx launched support for four USD stablecoins at once — PAX, TrueUSD (TUSD), USDCoin (USDC), and GUSD — and was swiftly followed by fellow top exchange Huobi.

OKEx and Huobi Global have also this month both launched support for the recently created Tron-based version of stalwart, if persistently controversial, stablecoin Tether.

In January, Cointelegraph reported that Star Xu had bought a controlling share in LEAP Holdings — a Caymans Island-incorporated construction engineering firm, which is listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.