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OKX Closes $25 Billion Valuation Extension With ICE, Ripple and Circle as Backers
OKX closed an undisclosed extension to its March funding round at a $25 billion valuation, adding Standard Chartered's SC Ventures, Ripple, Circle and Qube Research & Technologies alongside ICE.
Outputs
OKX closed a new funding tranche at a $25 billion valuation, the company said Tuesday.
The extension follows a $200 million March round at the same valuation led by Intercontinental Exchange, parent of the NYSE.
New participants include Standard Chartered's SC Ventures, Qube Research & Technologies, Ripple and Circle.
OKX founder and CEO Star Xu said the capital will support a transition into a 'broader global financial technology platform.'
On Monday, an OKX-ICE joint venture filed with the SEC to launch a tokenized stock trading platform under the agency's new innovation exemption.
Cryptocurrency exchange OKX has closed a new funding tranche at a $25 billion valuation, the company said Tuesday, drawing in Standard Chartered's SC Ventures, Qube Research & Technologies, Ripple and stablecoin issuer Circle.
What did OKX actually raise?
OKX declined to disclose the dollar size of the extension. The round sits on top of a $200 million investment announced in March at the same $25 billion figure, led by Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the operator of the New York Stock Exchange. Existing partners and investors took part in the latest leg, the company said in a press announcement.
The reuse of the $25 billion mark — applied now to a second close rather than a fresh round — indicates valuation discipline from existing shareholders rather than a step-up in implied worth.
Why are these investors relevant?
The participant list links OKX to a cross-section of regulated finance:
- ICE: parent of the NYSE, the single most consequential traditional exchange operator now formally tied to OKX through both capital and a joint venture.
- SC Ventures: Standard Chartered's investment vehicle, which has backed multiple digital asset infrastructure plays.
- Circle: issuer of USDC, the second-largest stablecoin by circulation and a frequent counterparty for exchange liquidity.
- Ripple: the cross-border payments firm that operates the XRP Ledger and has its own regulatory entanglements with the SEC.
- Qube Research & Technologies: a London-headquartered quantitative investment firm with prior crypto exposure.
How will the money be used?
Founder and CEO Star Xu framed the capital as fuel for a strategic pivot. The fresh funding will help OKX transition into a "broader global financial technology platform" that combines "crypto technology with the standards people expect from global financial institutions," he said.
That language mirrors a wider industry pattern: spot exchange operators are repositioning as compliance-ready venues that can plug into traditional rails, prime brokerage and tokenized securities.
What did OKX file with the SEC?
The valuation extension lands alongside a regulatory move. On Monday, a joint venture between OKX and ICE filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission to launch a tokenized stock trading platform under the regulator's new innovation exemption.
The exemption, introduced by the SEC as part of its recent agenda to widen market structure experimentation, allows qualified platforms to bring products to market without immediately undergoing the full registration process. A tokenized stock offering from an exchange tied to the NYSE parent is the highest-profile application of that framework to date.
What changes operationally?
For OKX, the round and the SEC filing together push the platform toward three concrete shifts:
- Product mix: from spot crypto toward tokenized equities and other traditional instruments traded on-chain.
- Counterparty base: from crypto-native market makers toward banks, custodians and regulated liquidity providers linked to ICE and Standard Chartered.
- Regulatory posture: from offshore exchange to a filer with the US SEC, even if through a special-purpose exemption rather than a full broker-dealer registration.
What to watch next
The SEC's review of the OKX-ICE tokenized stock platform will set the operational ceiling for the exchange's US ambitions. The agency's treatment of the innovation exemption in this filing will determine whether other exchange-led tokenization efforts can follow the same template or face tighter scrutiny.
via okx.com (Original)