OKX secures backing as it expands beyond crypto trading

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OKX expands fintech strategy

Highlights

OKX secured fresh investment from Circle, Ripple, Qube Research & Technologies, and SC Ventures at a $25 billion pre-money valuation, without disclosing the raised amount.
OKX and Intercontinental Exchange's joint venture filed to offer 24/7 tokenized trading for shares of 63 U.S. companies under a SEC tokenization framework using X Layer and stablecoins.
Macquarie reported early adoption of OKXICE will likely come from retail investors due to institutional regulatory and technology barriers, questioning institutional uptake at scale.

Funding round supports platform expansion

As reported by CoinDesk, OKX has secured fresh investment from Circle, Ripple, Qube Research & Technologies, and SC Ventures at a $25 billion pre-money valuation, although the company did not disclose the amount raised.

The new financing builds on an investment made in March by Intercontinental Exchange, the owner of the New York Stock Exchange. OKX founder and CEO Star Xu said the exchange is evolving into a broader global financial technology platform, with the company aiming to let customers hold, spend, invest and grow money from one platform.

The move reflects a wider shift across the crypto sector, where exchanges that were built around digital asset trading are trying to become more diversified financial platforms. That expansion increasingly includes payments, stablecoins, derivatives, stocks, and tokenized real-world assets.

Tokenized stock push tests market demand

OKX's expansion into traditional finance is taking shape through its relationship with ICE. An OKX-ICE joint venture filed this week to introduce tokenized trading in shares of 63 U.S. companies under a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission framework, using OKX's X Layer blockchain and stablecoins including USDC, USDT, and USDG for trading and settlement.

The proposed venue, OKXICE, is designed to offer 24/7 trading while preserving dividend and voting rights for tokenized shares. The initiative is an early test of the SEC's five-year tokenization framework and pushes OKX into a market long dominated by brokerages and securities exchanges.

Questions remain over whether institutions will adopt the model at scale. Macquarie said in a report on Tuesday that uptake will depend on OKXICE attracting enough companies, investors, and liquidity providers to support reliable around-the-clock pricing, while the temporary nature of the SEC exemption could discourage firms from investing in system connections before the rules are proven durable.

Macquarie expects early demand to skew toward retail investors because institutions already have efficient access to U.S.-listed stocks and face higher regulatory and technology barriers. Even so, the platform could become another test case for stablecoins as a settlement tool in regulated financial markets, a theme also reflected in OKX's investor lineup, with Circle issuing USDC, Ripple providing payments infrastructure and RLUSD, Standard Chartered acting as custodian for BlackRock's BUIDL tokenized Treasury fund in an arrangement involving OKX, and QRT serving as an institutional liquidity provider.

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