Global cryptocurrency exchange OKX has restricted access to Anthropic’s AI model Claude for employees working in Hong Kong or visiting China. The move came immediately after OKX’s enterprise Claude account was temporarily suspended in early August, drawing attention as a case where the AI supremacy race between the United States and China is now affecting day-to-day tool choices in corporate workplaces.<\/p>\n
According to Bloomberg, OKX halted service provision to Hong Kong-based employees immediately after its enterprise Claude account was temporarily suspended. While the enterprise account was later restored, OKX issued an internal notice stating it would not support VPN-based Claude access for employees working in Hong Kong or visiting China. Additional guidance this week reiterated that Claude may only be used in “supported regions.”<\/p>\n
An OKX spokesperson said, “We recently identified that Claude usage by some employees working in Hong Kong may not fully align with Anthropic’s regional policies,” adding that “where necessary, we will restrict Claude access for Hong Kong staff and route AI requests to alternative models.” Anthropic currently does not permit Claude usage in mainland China and Hong Kong, and reiterated the same policy in response to Bloomberg’s inquiries.<\/p>\n
$6\u20138 Million Monthly AI Spend<\/p>\n
The move comes as OKX has been aggressively expanding AI adoption across its operations. OKX has used both Claude and OpenAI’s ChatGPT in its workflows, but internally has reportedly assessed Claude as the more effective tool.<\/p>\n
OKX’s monthly spending on large language model (LLM)-based AI subscriptions ranges from $6 million (approximately 8.4 billion won) to $8 million (approximately 11 billion won). This reflects how deeply AI systems have become embedded across core functions including customer support, trading infrastructure, compliance monitoring, and internal software development. It signals that cryptocurrency exchanges are treating AI infrastructure not as an experimental budget line but as a recurring and significant operational expense.<\/p>\n
Goldman Sachs Takes Similar Action<\/p>\n
OKX is not alone. Bloomberg reported that Goldman Sachs has also blocked Hong Kong employees from accessing Anthropic’s models. The fact that a global cryptocurrency exchange and a major investment bank reached the same decision simultaneously suggests this issue may be structural, extending beyond any single company’s internal policies.<\/p>\n
Hong Kong sits at the intersection of mainland China and international regulatory frameworks, meaning that when Western AI companies apply region-specific access policies, corporate users can face unpredictable outcomes. Anthropic has not disclosed the specific reason for the account suspension, making it difficult for companies operating in Hong Kong to assess whether similar restrictions may apply to their own Claude usage.<\/p>\n
Market Impact<\/p>\n
The incident does not directly affect OKX’s trading operations or asset prices, as it concerns internal employee AI tool usage policies. However, it illustrates the operational risks that arise when cryptocurrency exchanges integrate third-party tools into their workflows without full visibility into external AI providers’ access policies.<\/p>\n
The fact that Goldman Sachs experienced similar restrictions increases the likelihood that this action reflects broad access policies applied to Hong Kong-based accounts rather than being specific to OKX. Companies across both traditional finance and the cryptocurrency industry must now reassess the reality that AI providers’ service availability can change without detailed notice.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, OKX sold a partial stake to Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the operator of the New York Stock Exchange, in March, at a valuation of $25 billion (approximately 34.9 trillion won).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Global cryptocurrency exchange OKX has restricted access to Anthropic’s AI model Claude for employees working in Hong Kong…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":146161,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[53,3154,580,182,1296,2700,71891,27437,157],"class_list":["post-146160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anthropic","tag-anthropic","tag-anthropic-claude","tag-chatgpt","tag-claude","tag-goldman-sachs","tag-hong-kong","tag-intercontinental-exchange-ice","tag-okx","tag-openai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146160\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}