OKX Raises Fresh Funding at $25 Billion Valuation

Crypto exchange OKX has secured new investment from Circle, Ripple, Qube Research & Technologies (QRT) and Standard Chartered’s venture arm, SC Ventures, as it expands beyond cryptocurrency trading into payments and tokenized traditional assets.

OKX did not disclose the size of the funding. The financing extends a March investment by Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), owner of the New York Stock Exchange, and maintains OKX’s pre-money valuation at $25 billion.

Founder and CEO Star Xu said the exchange business was only the company’s starting point as OKX develops into a broader global financial technology platform. Its strategy is to give customers one place to hold, spend, invest and grow their money.

The expansion reflects a wider trend across the crypto industry, where major exchanges are moving into stablecoins, payments, stocks, derivatives and tokenized real-world assets to diversify beyond digital asset trading.

OKX’s partnership with ICE is central to that push. Their joint venture, OKXICE, recently filed to launch tokenized stock trading under a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission framework.

The platform plans to provide round-the-clock trading in tokenized shares of 63 U.S. companies through OKX’s X Layer blockchain. Transactions would use stablecoins including USDC, USDT and USDG, while tokenized shares would retain traditional shareholder benefits such as voting and dividend rights.

Institutional adoption, however, remains uncertain. Macquarie said OKXICE will need sufficient participation from companies, investors and liquidity providers to maintain reliable pricing around the clock. The temporary five-year SEC tokenization framework could also discourage institutions from investing heavily in infrastructure without clarity over longer-term rules. TD Securities has raised similar concerns.

Macquarie expects retail investors to drive initial adoption because institutions already have efficient access to U.S. equities and face greater regulatory and technological hurdles.

OKX’s latest investors also highlight its growing connection with traditional finance. Circle operates USDC, Ripple provides payment infrastructure and issues RLUSD, QRT supplies institutional liquidity, while Standard Chartered is involved in custody arrangements linked to BlackRock’s BUIDL tokenized Treasury fund and OKX.