OKX has raised new funding at a $25 billion pre-money valuation, drawing checks from Circle, Ripple, QRT and SC Ventures, the investment arm of Standard Chartered. The crypto exchange says the capital will go toward tokenizing real-world assets. CEO Star Xu framed the raise as fuel for that effort.
The investor list says as much as the number does. Circle and Ripple are stablecoin and payments players, not passive funds. SC Ventures brings a bank balance sheet into the room. Earlier this year, Intercontinental Exchange — the parent of the New York Stock Exchange — invested in OKX to push tokenization forward.
The OKXICE filing
That ICE relationship has a name now. OKX and ICE's joint venture, OKXICE, filed with the SEC on Sunday to launch a tokenized securities platform. The pitch: around-the-clock trading of U.S. stocks.
The timing is deliberate. The SEC approved tokenized stock trading in September, giving the concept a regulatory green light it didn't have a year ago. OKXICE's filing is one of the first large-scale attempts to build a venue around it.
Whether the SEC moves quickly on the application is another matter. The agency hasn't said when it will rule.
Wall Street's tokenization habit
Tokenization isn't new on Wall Street. BlackRock and Franklin Templeton have used blockchain rails to tokenize money funds for years. What's changed is the temperature in Washington. Since the U.S. elected pro-crypto president Donald Trump, who stocked regulators with friendlier appointees, tokenization has become a bigger buzzword in traditional finance.
There's precedent for mixing crypto plumbing with equity markets. In January, the S&P 500 cleared crypto platform Trade[XYZ] to debut a derivative contract on decentralized exchange Hyperliquid, allowing 24-7 trading of the stock index. That was a derivatives product, not a tokenized share. OKXICE is aiming at the underlying asset.
From exchange to fintech platform
OKX is trying to sell itself as something other than a crypto exchange. The company's line is that it's evolving into a broader global financial technology platform. That's a familiar pitch from every large exchange that wants a valuation above its trading volume.
The $25 billion pre-money figure is the hard part to argue with. It puts OKX in a tier where the tokenization narrative needs to produce revenue, not just partnerships.
Regulatory risk hasn't gone away. The SEC approved tokenized stock trading, but approval of the concept is not approval of any specific platform. OKXICE still has to clear the agency's review.
Next concrete step: the SEC's response to Sunday's filing. Until then, the $25 billion valuation rests on a business line that hasn't launched yet.
