OKX extends funding round at $25bn valuation, adding four partners as investors

OKX has closed an extension of its March funding round at an unchanged $25 billion valuation, adding four new backers: Circle, Ripple, Qube Research & Technologies (QRT) and SC Ventures, the venture unit of Standard Chartered. The privately held crypto exchange declined to say how much fresh capital the extension raised, citing its own announcement. Finance Magnates reported the $25 billion figure as a pre-money valuation, meaning the value assigned before the new money is counted.

An extension is a further close of an existing round, generally on the same terms as the original. No lead investor has been identified for this extension, in contrast to the March round, which was led by Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) with an investment of roughly $200 million at the same $25 billion valuation.

Suppliers taking equity

Each of the new participants is already tied to a service it provides to OKX. Circle's USDC, a dollar-pegged stablecoin, is integrated across the exchange, while Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin is available on OKX's unified order book — the single pool of buy and sell orders. QRT supplies liquidity and risk capacity.

The SC Ventures connection is collateral-related: the Standard Chartered group acts as custodian of BlackRock's BUIDL, a tokenised Treasury fund whose units exist as digital tokens, and OKX uses that fund as off-exchange collateral, meaning margin held outside the trading venue.

Separately, ICE and OKX co-founded OKXICE, a planned tokenised-securities venue covering 63 US stocks. It is seeking approval from the US Securities and Exchange Commission under the five-year innovation exemption and is neither approved nor trading.

Haider Rafique, Global Managing Partner at OKX, said the funding supports long-term market infrastructure. Star Xu framed the extension as strategic alignment rather than a raise driven by a need for funds. For brokers, exchanges and payment providers that supply a crypto venue with stablecoin rails, liquidity or custody, the deal points to a model in which suppliers take equity in the venues they serve.