Crypto exchange OKX has raised fresh capital at a $25 billion valuation from Qube Research & Technologies (QRT), the global quantitative hedge fund, with existing investors Circle, Ripple and Standard Chartered's SC Ventures also participating, Bloomberg reported Tuesday.

The round extends OKX's March financing, in which Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the owner of the New York Stock Exchange, invested $200 million at the same $25 billion valuation. That earlier deal gave ICE a direct stake in one of the world's largest crypto exchanges. OKX did not disclose how much capital the latest extension brings in.

The exchange said the new funding will support efforts to strengthen its market infrastructure, without offering further detail. The participation of QRT, a multi-strategy quant manager, alongside stablecoin issuer Circle, payments firm Ripple and a bank-affiliated venture arm in SC Ventures, marks a broadening of the institutional base behind the exchange.

OKB, the OKX ecosystem token, rose roughly 6% to $138 on the financing news.

What does the ICE joint venture signal?

The most concrete operational consequence of ICE's earlier investment is already visible. Following the March deal, the two companies formed OKXICE LLC, a joint venture focused on tokenized stock trading.

The venture is now seeking approval to offer tokenized stocks representing 63 US public companies, including NVIDIA, Apple and Coca-Cola, under the SEC's five-year innovation exemption. That exemption allows tokenized stocks to trade in the United States provided they grant holders rights equivalent to those of traditional shares.

The application, if approved, would put tokenized equities of some of the most heavily traded US names on crypto market infrastructure, deepening the overlap between conventional securities rails and blockchain-based settlement.

Why does the round matter for market structure?

The funding reflects a wider pattern: traditional financial firms are increasingly partnering with crypto platforms to build new market infrastructure rather than competing against them head-on.

For OKX, the extension consolidates a cap table that now spans an exchange operator, a quantitative asset manager, a stablecoin issuer, a blockchain payments company and a bank's venture arm. That mix positions the exchange to serve both institutional trading flows and the tokenization of conventional assets.

The $25 billion valuation, held steady across the March round and this extension, also signals where private markets now price a top-tier exchange platform after a period of regulatory recalibration in the United States.

The immediate milestone to watch is regulatory: OKXICE's request covering 63 tokenized US equities sits with the SEC under the innovation exemption, and an approval decision would effectively open tokenized stock trading to US investors through crypto rails.