The crypto exchange OKX closed fresh funding at a $25 billion valuation, flat from its March round, with new and returning strategic backers spanning payments, banking and quantitative trading.

According to a Bloomberg report, investors include stablecoin issuer Circle Internet Group, blockchain payments firm Ripple, and Standard Chartered's investment arm SC Ventures. The round also drew London-based quant fund Qube Research & Technologies (QRT), a Credit Suisse spinout new to the cap table.

The exchange declined to disclose how much it raised. The $25 billion price tag matches the March round, in which Intercontinental Exchange, owner of the New York Stock Exchange, committed approximately $200 million, a deal framed at the time around tokenized securities.

Haider Rafique, OKX's global managing partner, said the capital "focuses on strengthening OKX's long-term market infrastructure."

Why does QRT's involvement matter?

QRT, a London quantitative trading firm, already runs a crypto fund holding roughly $1 billion in digital assets. Its entry signals continued institutional appetite from systematic shops that have historically remained on the periphery of exchange cap tables.

Thomas Eaton, a quantitative trading director at QRT, framed the investment as a bet on "the long-term growth of digital assets and 24/7 markets."

The combination matters operationally: QRT's high-frequency stack could inform how OKXICE LLC sequences tokenized equity order books on public blockchains around the clock.

What is OKX building with ICE?

Through a joint venture disclosed in March, OKXICE LLC, the exchange and ICE are pursuing SEC approval to tokenize shares in 63 U.S. public companies, with Nvidia, Apple and Coca-Cola among them.

The application, announced Monday, would operate under the SEC's innovation exemption introduced in September, days after the Clarity Act stalled in the Senate. The rule permits qualifying venues to trade tokenized U.S. equities on public blockchains without registering as national securities exchanges, for a renewable term of up to five years.

What does the exemption cover?

The framework restricts listings to tokens that carry identical economic and voting rights to ordinary shares, including dividends and voting entitlements. Synthetic exposures that merely track share prices without granting shareholder rights fall outside the rule.

Each covered venue faces a numerical listing cap. Issuers retain a 30-day window to object to third-party tokenization of their stock. On that timetable, Nvidia, Apple and Coca-Cola each hold a formal veto over whether their shares appear on the venue at all.

The mechanism effectively hands blue-chip issuers a binary opt-out rather than a negotiation lever, compressing the timeline between application and listing.

What else has OKX done?

Beyond the equity push, OKX has listed perpetual futures tied to Magnificent Seven stocks and the S&P 500, building a derivative book that already draws on U.S. equity proxies without permission from underlying issuers.

What is the operator-level read?

The investor mix is calibrated rather than incidental. Circle brings stablecoin issuance and reserve-management expertise that could back settlement on OKXICE LLC. Ripple contributes cross-border payment rails and XRP ecosystem integration. SC Ventures anchors OKX inside the regulatory perimeter of a global systemically important bank. QRT adds high-frequency liquidity context.

A flat $25 billion mark across two rounds seven months apart suggests secondary-market clearing levels have held, even as several publicly traded digital-asset peers have seen their multiples compress.

The next structural test is whether OKXICE LLC clears the issuer objection windows and begins onboarding tokens before the start of the broader five-year regulatory clock. Extensions to the Magnificent Seven perpetual suite would then determine whether the joint venture's footprint expands in derivatives or settles around the headline equity tokenization.