OKX Gets New Funding From Circle, Standard Chartered at $25B Valuation

Crypto exchange OKX has raised new funding at a $25 billion valuation, the company said on Tuesday, revealing investment from top digital asset companies. 

The crypto exchange said in an announcement that stablecoin giant Circle, fintech firm Ripple and British bank Standard Chartered’s investment arm, SC Ventures, all participated in the fundraise. 

Earlier this year, the Intercontinental Exchange invested in the digital asset firm in a move to accelerate tokenization. The two’s joint venture, OKXICE, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Sunday to launch a tokenized securities platform ​for around-the-clock trading of U.S. ​stocks. 

“Through strategic investment and partnership, OKX is aligning some of the most critical builders of financial infrastructure behind its vision for the next generation of onchain markets,” OKX said in a statement. 

OKX CEO and founder Star Xu said that the capital would help the company tokenize real-world assets. 

“The exchange was our starting point, and we are evolving into a broader global financial technology platform,” he added. 

A number of top Wall Street firms are increasingly interested in the technology that powers Bitcoin. While traditional finance titans like BlackRock and Franklin Templeton for years have used blockchain rails to tokenize money funds. Tokenization has become a bigger buzzword on Wall Street since the U.S. elected pro-crypto president Donald Trump. 

The president has appointed regulators that have taken a more friendly stance toward watchdogging the crypto space. The SEC in September approved tokenized stock trading. 

Other big deals between TradFi and the crypto space include the S&P 500 in January giving crypto platform Trade[XYZ] the green light to debut a new derivative contract on decentralized exchange Hyperliquid, allowing traders to trade the stock index 24-7.