Key Notes
- Star Xu named Standard Chartered, Circle and Ripple among financial institutions making equity investments in OKX.
- ICE’s March investment valued OKX at $25 billion and secured a board seat, while the companies left financial terms undisclosed.
- The latest remarks give no investment amounts or closing dates and build on existing custody, stablecoin and market-infrastructure partnerships.
OKX founder and chief executive Star Xu said major financial institutions, including Standard Chartered, Circle, and Ripple, are making equity investments in the crypto exchange, widening its connections with traditional finance after a March transaction valued the business at $25 billion.
Speaking at OKX Now 2026 in Singapore on October 6, Xu also named Intercontinental Exchange and its New York Stock Exchange business. Wu Blockchain published a keynote transcript, while the official broadcast is available from OKX.
Xu did not disclose investment amounts, ownership percentages or closing dates. His remarks describe a broader group of institutional investors, without establishing that every transaction has closed or that a new funding round carries the same valuation.
The $25 Billion Valuation Comes From March
ICE, the owner of the NYSE, announced its strategic investment on March 5. It explicitly said the deal reflected a $25 billion valuation for OKX and would give ICE a seat on the exchange operator’s board.
The companies did not disclose the financial terms. Bloomberg reported at the time that ICE invested roughly $200 million, citing people familiar with the matter. Representatives for ICE and OKX declined to comment on the investment’s size, leaving that figure attributed to Bloomberg’s reporting.
The distinction matters when assessing the latest investor comments. A company valuation expresses the value assigned to the business in a transaction; it is not the amount of cash raised. The $25 billion figure is a disclosed historical reference point, while the capital contributed by Standard Chartered, Circle and Ripple remains unspecified in Xu’s speech.
ICE Links the Investment to Market Infrastructure
ICE’s investment came with an operating relationship. The companies outlined plans for ICE to license OKX spot crypto prices for regulated US futures and for OKX to distribute access to ICE futures and NYSE tokenized equities. They also proposed cooperation on clearing, risk management, custody and wallet infrastructure.
Access to the traditional-market products was explicitly subject to regulatory approval. The announcement therefore set out the intended direction of the partnership, rather than confirming that all of those services were immediately available to customers.
The relationship has since produced more specific proposals. CoinScreamer recently covered the joint venture’s stock-trading plans, including a filing for round-the-clock tokenized US equity trading. That initiative gives the investment story a practical dimension: the exchange groups are seeking to connect blockchain trading with established securities markets.
Standard Chartered and Circle Already Work With OKX
Standard Chartered’s relationship with OKX already includes institutional custody. In its collateral programme, the exchange describes a pilot under Dubai’s Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority framework that lets institutional clients use cryptocurrencies and tokenized money-market funds as collateral while keeping the underlying assets off the exchange.
The bank acts as an independent regulated custodian, while OKX’s regulated Dubai entity manages collateral and facilitates trading. The arrangement separates the safekeeping of assets from the venue where clients trade, addressing a central institutional concern: how much exposure a trading firm has to its exchange counterparty.
OKX named Brevan Howard Digital among the programme’s early participants. The model illustrates why a banking relationship can matter beyond an equity cheque, particularly for institutions that need custody arrangements compatible with their own risk controls before committing trading capital.
Circle’s existing commercial relationship focuses on dollar-backed liquidity. The companies partnered in July 2025 to support one-to-one conversions between dollars and USDC across OKX products and services, alongside easier movement between bank money and the stablecoin through shared banking partners.
That agreement helps explain the operational fit between a stablecoin issuer and a trading platform. More accessible dollar conversion can support trading and payments, while a bank custody arrangement addresses where collateral is held. These are distinct services; neither earlier commercial announcement, by itself, established an equity investment.
A Broader Financial Platform
Xu presented the investor relationships as part of OKX’s transition toward a wider financial technology platform. His strategy spans holding funds, payments, investment and wealth management, combining crypto’s programmable, continuously operating infrastructure with the liquidity and regulatory experience of established financial institutions.
Artificial intelligence also featured in the keynote. Xu said AI workflows handle the main development work for about 95% of OKX’s engineering pull requests, with engineers still reviewing, testing and approving the results. He said the company’s bill to AI model providers reached $10 million last month.
The investor roster connects that broader strategy to businesses involved in exchange infrastructure, banking and stablecoin liquidity. The next material disclosures will be the investment terms and ownership stakes, alongside evidence of how the financial partnerships translate into services available to OKX customers.
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