OKX has attracted new investors, and the names matter more than the amount of money. Circle, Ripple, quantitative investment manager QRT, and SC Ventures - the venture arm of Standard Chartered - have all bought into the exchange at a $25 billion pre‑money valuation, according to CoinDesk. OKX did not disclose the amount invested.
The round extends the March investment from Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the owner of the New York Stock Exchange, and it uses the same $25 billion pre‑money figure, meaning the valuation has not changed.
The cap table is the tell
One investor is a stablecoin company, another a crypto payments firm, a third a quantitative fund, and the fourth a bank's venture arm. Behind all of them sits the parent of the NYSE. These are not casual observers; they are firms that stand to benefit if crypto infrastructure takes on parts of traditional market plumbing, and they are taking positions.
What the money is pointed at
The concrete play is OKX‑ICE, the joint venture between OKX and ICE, which filed this week to introduce tokenized stock trading under an SEC framework. The plan calls for 24/7 trading in tokenized shares of 63 U.S. companies, running on OKX's X Layer blockchain, with trading and settlement in stablecoins. The platform will use USDC for settlement, will also accept USDT, and may incorporate USDG as an additional option.
Founder and CEO Star Xu said the exchange "was our starting point" and that OKX is "evolving into a broader global financial technology platform." The company's stated goal is to let customers hold, spend, and grow their money in one place.
The catch
Macquarie's read, cited by CoinDesk, is the cold water. Early demand for the tokenized‑stock platform is expected to skew toward retail investors, while regulatory uncertainty and integration costs pose hurdles for institutions. Filing under an SEC framework is not the same as receiving approval. The 63 companies represent a pilot list, not a full market. The product being sold is not tokenization itself; it is U.S. stocks that can trade when the NYSE is closed.
I keep returning to the valuation. OKX received the same $25 billion number in October that it got in March, with an undisclosed amount of new money on top, while it tries to become something much bigger than an exchange. Whether enough people will buy a tokenized share at 2 a.m. on a Saturday to justify that number, nobody knows. But a stock‑exchange owner, a global bank and a stablecoin giant have just paid to find out.
Sources
- CoinDesk: "OKX draws investment from StanChart, Circle, Ripple as it pushes beyond crypto exchange roots" (https://www.coindesk.com/business/2026/10/06/okx-draws-investment-from-stanchart-circle-ripple-as-it-pushes-beyond-crypto-exchange-roots)