Circle, Ripple and Standard Chartered invest in OKX at $25 billion valuation

OKX has completed a strategic investment from Circle, Qube Research & Technologies, Ripple and Standard Chartered’s SC Ventures at a $25 billion pre money valuation, adding four existing infrastructure partners to the funding round started by NYSE parent Intercontinental Exchange in March.

According to an Oct. 6 announcement from OKX, the latest investment extends the round led by ICE and brings capital from companies already working with the exchange across stablecoins, institutional liquidity, payments and custody. The amount invested by the four companies and their individual stakes were not disclosed.

OKX adds four partners to its $25 billion funding round

Circle, QRT, Ripple and SC Ventures each have an existing commercial or infrastructure relationship with OKX.

Circle issues USDC, which is used across the exchange’s trading products. QRT serves as an institutional counterparty and provides liquidity and risk capacity, while Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin is available through OKX’s unified order book.

Standard Chartered already handles part of the exchange’s institutional custody infrastructure. Its venture arm, SC Ventures, is participating in the investment.

OKX founder and CEO Star Xu said the company intends to build a financial technology platform spanning holding, payments and investing while using crypto infrastructure alongside standards used by global financial institutions.

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

Capital from the round will support the company’s continued growth and plans to tokenize real world assets, according to Xu. OKX did not provide a breakdown of how much of the new funding would be allocated to individual products or markets.

The four investors join ICE, which made a strategic investment in March. As crypto.news previously reported, the deal valued OKX at $25 billion and gave the NYSE parent board representation.

ICE and OKX paired the investment with plans to work together on regulated market infrastructure. OKX would provide spot crypto pricing that ICE could use for regulated U.S. futures products, while the exchange planned to give its users access to ICE futures and tokenized NYSE equities, subject to regulatory approval.

Their relationship has since moved into additional markets. In May, the companies agreed to use ICE Brent and WTI benchmarks for oil perpetual futures offered by OKX in selected jurisdictions.

Circle investment follows deeper USDC integration on OKX

Circle’s equity investment follows several months of work to put USDC across more parts of OKX’s trading and blockchain infrastructure.

In September, Circle and OKX expanded USDC trading across spot, margin and futures markets. Eligible users gained more access to USDC denominated markets, while OKX introduced a USDC Margin Growth Program funded by Circle.

Their existing relationship had already covered dollar to USDC conversions and support for the stablecoin on X Layer, the Ethereum compatible layer 2 network developed by OKX.

A month earlier, Circle deployed native USDC on X Layer together with its Cross Chain Transfer Protocol. The setup lets applications use Circle issued USDC directly instead of relying only on bridged versions of the stablecoin.

Circle co founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire tied the investment to the companies’ existing work.

“USDC’s integration across OKX’s platform demonstrates what it looks like when regulated dollar infrastructure meets one of the world’s most active onchain trading environments,” Allaire said.

Circle has been building similar connections with financial institutions outside OKX. Its Arc blockchain went live on public mainnet in September with institutional validators including BlackRock, DTCC, Visa, Mastercard and Standard Chartered. The network uses USDC for gas and launched with tokenized funds among the assets supported from the start.

Standard Chartered already handles OKX institutional collateral

Standard Chartered’s role reaches into custody and collateral used by institutional traders on OKX.

In April, OKX added BlackRock’s BUIDL tokenized U.S. Treasury fund to its institutional collateral framework with the bank. Eligible institutional and VIP clients can use BUIDL as trading margin while keeping the asset off exchange with Standard Chartered.

Under the arrangement, OKX handles margining and liquidation through its trading system, while Standard Chartered holds the collateral separately. Clients retain ownership of BUIDL and its yield.

The BUIDL setup built on a collateral mirroring relationship between the two companies that began in 2025. Institutional customers can keep eligible assets with the bank while their value is mirrored into an OKX trading account, reducing the need to move the underlying collateral onto the exchange.

Alex Manson, CEO of SC Ventures, said institutional participation in digital assets requires infrastructure that includes institutional grade custody.

“Our partnership with OKX reflects the importance of such infrastructure in enabling the onchain economy,” Manson said.

Standard Chartered has separately worked with Circle to give eligible institutional clients access to USDC minting and redemption through its banking platform. The bank led USDC service launched through its operations in the Dubai International Financial Centre, with possible expansion to other markets subject to approvals.

Ripple and QRT bring stablecoin and liquidity ties

Ripple enters the investor group with RLUSD already integrated into OKX’s trading infrastructure.

The stablecoin operates through the exchange’s unified order book, while Ripple works across payments and liquidity infrastructure. Jack McDonald, Ripple’s senior vice president of stablecoins, said the investment could lead to more work between the companies across stablecoins, payments and institutional markets.

“Stablecoins are becoming a core part of global financial infrastructure, and scaled platforms like OKX will play an important role in driving that shift,” McDonald said.

QRT approaches the relationship from the institutional trading side. The global multi strategy investment manager is a major counterparty to OKX and works with the exchange on liquidity, risk capacity and the rollout of new products and markets.

Thomas Eaton, quantitative trading director at QRT, said its investment was based on the firm’s confidence in OKX and the long term growth of digital assets and round the clock markets.

The latest funding leaves the size of each investment undisclosed. OKX described the transaction as an extension of the ICE led round and maintained the same $25 billion pre money valuation announced for the new investment.