Crypto exchange OKX has secured investment from Circle, Ripple, quantitative investment manager Qube Research & Technologies (QRT), and SC Ventures, the venture arm of Standard Chartered, at a $25 billion pre-money valuation.
The funding marks OKX's continued pivot from a cryptocurrency trading venue into a broader global financial technology platform spanning crypto, payments, and traditional assets moving onto blockchain rails. Founder and CEO Star Xu stated that the exchange is "evolving into a broader global financial technology platform," with the goal of allowing customers to hold, spend, invest and grow their money from a single platform.
Tokenized Stock Trading
The new investment follows a March funding round from Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), owner of the New York Stock Exchange, which also valued OKX at $25 billion on a pre-money basis.
OKX and ICE have filed a joint venture to introduce tokenized stock trading under a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission framework. The OKXICE platform plans to offer 24/7 trading in tokenized shares of 63 U.S. companies using OKX's X Layer blockchain and stablecoins including USDC, USDT, and USDG. Shares retain dividend and voting rights under the arrangement.
Adoption Challenges
Investment banking firm Macquarie identified hurdles to institutional adoption, including the temporary nature of the SEC exemption, which could make institutions reluctant to invest in system connections before regulatory certainty emerges. Higher regulatory and technology integration costs present additional barriers for traditional financial players compared to retail investors.
The tokenized stock venture represents an early test of the SEC's five-year tokenization framework and could serve as a proving ground for stablecoins as a settlement tool in regulated financial markets beyond cryptocurrency trading.
