Erald Ghoos, OKX Europe CEO — MiCA, Malta, and the 80% Exchange Reckoning

Erald Ghoos, OKX Europe CEO — MiCA, Malta, and the 80% Exchange Reckoning

Author: Bitcoin.com April 24, 2026 Duration: 35:05

In 2017, a Bitcoin-maxi friend tried to convert Erald Ghoos. He didn't buy it — he'd spent his career building bank startups across Europe and was, in his own words, on "the dark side." Today he runs OKX Europe and says 80% of crypto exchanges on the continent won't survive what's coming.

David Sencil sits down with Erald at Paris Blockchain Week 2026 to dig into the regulatory pressure cooker reshaping European crypto — MiCA, PI, MiFID, GDPR, DORA — and why struggling rivals are already approaching OKX asking to be acquired. They cover OKX's decision to anchor three financial licenses in Malta, the new X-Perps product designed to bridge onshore compliance with offshore-level liquidity, and the unified spot-and-derivatives account that doesn't exist anywhere else in Europe.


We cover:

- The personal arc: from skeptical banker to OKX Europe CEO

- Why 80% of European crypto exchanges won't survive MiCA + PI + MiFID + GDPR + DORA

- Why rivals are openly asking OKX to acquire them

- The case for stacking three financial licenses in Malta

- X-Perps: bridging onshore compliance with offshore-level liquidity

- Europe's only unified spot-and-derivatives account

- Merz at Davos and the deregulation signal

- Tokenized stocks and 24/7 global market access


Filmed at Paris Blockchain Week 2026.

Host: David Sencil

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Author: Language: en-us Episodes: 100

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