OKX Lands Circle, Ripple and Standard Chartered as Investors at $25B Valuation

Published October 6, 2026, 18:15 UTC. Based on OKX's announcement of October 6, 2026, and reporting by crypto.news, BloFin and Fortune.

OKX said on October 6 that Circle, Qube Research & Technologies, Ripple and Standard Chartered's SC Ventures have joined its funding round at a $25 billion pre-money valuation, according to the company's announcement. The new capital extends the strategic investment round led by Intercontinental Exchange, the NYSE parent, in March, and OKX said the individual investment amounts were not disclosed.

Who joined the $25B round

All four new investors already work with OKX across parts of its trading and infrastructure, crypto.news reported. Circle issues USDC, which trades across OKX's spot, margin and futures markets. Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin is available through the exchange's unified order book. QRT, a global multi-strategy investment manager, is a major counterparty that provides liquidity and risk capacity. Standard Chartered handles part of OKX's institutional custody infrastructure, with its venture arm SC Ventures taking the equity position.

OKX founder and CEO Star Xu said the company is turning its trading business into something larger. “The exchange was our starting point, and we are evolving into a broader global financial technology platform,” Xu said, adding that the capital would support the company's growth and its plans to tokenize real world assets. The company did not say how much of the new funding would go to individual products or markets, crypto.news reported.

Circle's USDC work on OKX

Circle's equity investment follows months of deepening USDC integration on OKX. In September, the two companies expanded USDC trading across spot, margin and futures markets and introduced a USDC Margin Growth Program funded by Circle, crypto.news reported. Their earlier work covered dollar-to-USDC conversions and support for USDC on X Layer, the Ethereum-compatible layer 2 network developed by OKX, and in August Circle deployed native USDC on X Layer together with its Cross Chain Transfer Protocol.

Circle co-founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire tied the investment to that 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, according to crypto.news.

Standard Chartered's custody role

Standard Chartered's role runs through OKX's institutional collateral framework. In April, OKX added BlackRock's BUIDL tokenized U.S. Treasury fund as trading margin for eligible institutional and VIP clients, with Standard Chartered holding the collateral off exchange, crypto.news reported. Under the arrangement, clients keep ownership of BUIDL and its yield while OKX handles margining and liquidation, and the setup built on a collateral mirroring relationship between the two companies that began in 2025.

“Our partnership with OKX reflects the importance of such infrastructure in enabling the onchain economy,” Alex Manson, CEO of SC Ventures, said. QRT's quantitative trading director Thomas Eaton said the firm's investment rested on its confidence in OKX and the long term growth of round the clock digital asset markets.

Ripple's stablecoin argument

Ripple enters the investor group with RLUSD already inside OKX's trading stack and a business built on payments and liquidity infrastructure. Jack McDonald, Ripple's senior vice president of stablecoins, said the investment could lead to more joint work 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, according to crypto.news.

The March ICE deal it extends

The October investment sits on top of the March deal in which ICE took a strategic stake that valued OKX at $25 billion and gave the NYSE parent board representation, crypto.news previously reported. The pair planned regulated market infrastructure in which OKX would provide spot crypto pricing for ICE's regulated U.S. futures products while OKX users would get access to ICE futures and tokenized NYSE equities, subject to regulatory approval. In May, the companies agreed to use ICE Brent and WTI benchmarks for oil perpetual futures offered by OKX in selected jurisdictions. BloFin reported that OKX also plans a 24/7 tokenized U.S. stock trading venue using stablecoins for settlement with ICE.

OKX Money launches the same day

At the same Singapore event, OKX Now, the exchange launched OKX Money, a standalone app aimed at users in emerging markets that converts more than 50 local currencies into dollar-backed stablecoins, Fortune reported. The app targets Latin America, Africa, South Asia and the Middle East and lets users hold USDG, USDC and USDT, with OKX advertising up to 10% annual yield on eligible USDG balances, virtual and physical cards with no foreign exchange markup, and peer-to-peer transfers.

“The key gap for people and institutions is settlement,” Haider Rafique, OKX's global managing partner, told Fortune, pointing to slow bank settlement and frozen card limits as the frictions the app is meant to remove. OKX has not disclosed how the advertised yield is generated, the Crypto Times flagged. Together with the funding news, the launch signals OKX's push beyond spot trading toward payments and savings products for users without easy access to dollar banking.

This article is news reporting and is not investment advice.

Sources

• OKX, announcement (Oct. 6, 2026), primary source
• crypto.news, Circle, Ripple and Standard Chartered invest in OKX at $25 billion valuation (Oct. 6, 2026)
• BloFin, OKX Raises Funding at $25B Valuation from Circle, Ripple, StanChart (Oct. 6, 2026)
• Fortune via WDC TV, OKX's new app turns 50 currencies into digital dollars, betting EM investors want stablecoins (Oct. 6, 2026)