OKX Closes Strategic Extension Round at $25 Billion Valuation With Circle, Ripple, QRT and SC Ventures
OKX Closes Strategic Extension Round at $25 Billion Valuation With Circle, Ripple, QRT and SC Ventures #
Crypto exchange OKX has closed a strategic funding extension at a $25 billion pre-money valuation, adding Circle, Ripple, Qube Research & Technologies (QRT) and Standard Chartered’s venture arm SC Ventures to its investor base. The transaction was announced on October 6 and builds on a March investment led by Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, which committed approximately $200 million at the same valuation. The amount raised in the latest tranche was not disclosed.
Each of the four new investors has an existing operational relationship with OKX. Circle issues USDC, which is used for trading and settlement on the exchange. QRT is a multi-strategy quantitative investment manager and a major institutional liquidity counterparty. Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin circulates across OKX’s order book. Standard Chartered’s connection runs through the BlackRock BUIDL tokenized Treasury fund: OKX clients can post shares of that fund as trading margin, with the bank holding those shares in custody off-exchange. According to the company’s announcement, OKX groups the four firms into four infrastructure categories: stablecoin issuance, liquidity, collateral, and custody.
“Our investment reflects our conviction in what they’re building and opens the door to deepen our work together across stablecoins, payments and institutional markets,” said Jack McDonald, Senior Vice President of Stablecoins at Ripple.
The fundraise comes as OKX prepares to launch a major joint venture with ICE. OKXICE LLC, a 50/50 partnership between the two companies, filed notification with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on October 4 and 5 to launch a Tokenised Securities Venue offering round-the-clock trading in tokenized shares of 63 NYSE-listed companies. The platform is designed to settle trades using stablecoins, including USDC, USDT and USDG, on OKX’s proprietary X Layer blockchain, and would operate under the SEC’s recently introduced five-year innovation exemption framework for on-chain securities trading. Subject to regulatory approval, OKX would also gain access to ICE’s US futures markets.
OKX founder and CEO Star Xu has described the company’s direction as a move beyond its origins as a spot crypto exchange toward traditional capital markets infrastructure. Analysts at Macquarie expect early demand on the tokenized-stock platform to come mainly from retail investors, citing regulatory uncertainty and integration costs as near-term barriers for institutional participants.
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