NYSE Invests in OKX at $25 Billion Valuation, Tokenized Stocks Officially Go Mainstream

Original｜Odaily (@OdailyChina)

Author｜Wenser (@wenser 2010)

On the evening of March 5th Beijing time, according to a Fortune report, Intercontinental Exchange Group (ICE), the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), invested in the crypto exchange OKX at a valuation of $25 billion. OKX will provide ICE with real-time cryptocurrency price data, and plans to relocate over 2,000 employees to the United States to advance its tokenized stock trading initiative. The plan is to open trading for tokenized stocks listed on the NYSE and related derivatives starting in the second half of 2026. Following this news, OKB briefly broke through $120 USDT, currently retracing to around $106, marking a 24-hour increase of 35%.

This is not ICE's first foray into crypto assets. It had previously announced plans to build its own blockchain-based infrastructure for tokenized securities trading and invested in the prediction market platform Polymarket. Now, ICE's direct investment in OKX signals a shift for traditional financial giants from "testing the waters" to "formal integration." Against the backdrop of the AI wave driving up valuations of traditional tech stocks, the NYSE is no longer content with the status quo. It is attempting to proactively reshape the global capital market's trading landscape by leveraging the technology and user base of a leading CEX.

The alliance between the world's largest stock exchange and the second-largest crypto platform not only signifies accelerated integration between the two systems but also builds a new capital bridge between CeFi and TradFi.

ICE Doubles Down, Aiming to Bet on the Future of Trading

Although ICE has declined to disclose the specific investment amount or terms for OKX, the $25 billion valuation sets a promising precedent for OKX's potential future IPO. (Odaily Note: Coinbase (COIN), the first publicly listed crypto exchange, currently has a market cap of $55 billion, which is 2.2 times OKX's post-investment valuation.)

As more details emerge, we gain insight into the deeper integration plans between ICE Group and OKX:

On personnel preparation, Haider Rafique, OKX's Global Head of Corporate Affairs, stated that OKX plans to relocate up to 2,000 of its 5,000 employees to the United States, "particularly to support the tokenized stock and other ICE asset trading plans. We will definitely make significant investments in the U.S." This functionality is expected to launch officially in the second half of 2026.

On high-level decision-making, OKX CEO Star stated publicly that Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) will join the company's board. The two parties may explore tokenized securities and the digitization of traditional assets in the future, including researching how to connect securities more efficiently to global investors through digital infrastructure while adhering to the governance and regulatory frameworks of traditional exchanges. Collaboration between digital asset technology and traditional financial institutions may become a crucial direction for future financial market development.

If OKX was previously a CEX primarily active in the crypto-native market, ICE's involvement brings not only financial support but also a pathway to further penetrate the U.S. market. It helps clear a series of policy, review, and application-related restrictions and obstacles for a potential future crypto-related IPO in the United States.

The primary reason for ICE's significant bet likely stems from cryptocurrency adoption rates.

Based on available data, the global cryptocurrency user base is at least 650-700 million people. This means approximately 8–9% of the global population, or about 20–22% of internet-connected adults, hold or have used crypto assets. In the United States, this number is around 55-70 million, with the 18–34 age group (young adults) being the absolute majority at about 40–45%; the 35–54 group (middle-aged) at about 30–35%; and those 55 and older at about 15–20%.

Undoubtedly, with Trump's administration and the rollout of a series of crypto-friendly policies, cryptocurrency adoption is rapidly increasing in the U.S. and worldwide. For ICE Group and the NYSE, this represents a potentially massive incremental market.

While the NYSE is undoubtedly professional in stock trading, OKX, with years of industry experience, holds more authority in cryptocurrency trading. The deeper implication of ICE's investment in OKX is not merely about repackaging its listed assets for OKX's platform. It's about rapidly absorbing OKX's diverse trading technology foundations and rich market operation experience to quickly build its own on-chain trading ecosystem, realizing the grand vision of "making tokenized stock trading accessible to all." This is also the key point emphasized in ICE's public statement — "the two companies share a common vision for the future."

Hence, the powerful alliance between ICE and OKX, through the "price representation of crypto assets," integrates the cryptocurrency trading system into ICE's regulatory and risk management framework. This allows both parties to leverage OKX's crypto market depth to connect with ICE Group's compliance, clearing, risk control, and institutional distribution conveniences.

Compared to Coinbase, which has long been focused on building an "exchange for everything" but remained at a superficial level, the investment partnership between ICE Group and OKX might be a more suitable solution for both the crypto industry and traditional finance. The former provides a complete infrastructure for on-chain trading, clearing, settlement, custody, and capital formation. The latter seamlessly introduces its 120 million global users to ICE's futures market and the NYSE's tokenized stock trading ecosystem.

This collaboration also sets a new competitive challenge for rivals — how to coexist with a traditional stock exchange that acts as both regulator and participant? Soon, we might see different CEXs present their varied responses.

Conclusion: We Are Striding into the On-Chain Trading Era

With ICE's investment in OKX, we can clearly see that giants in both the traditional finance and cryptocurrency industries are desperately seeking new growth while solidifying their existing moats.

For ICE and the NYSE, among the world's largest stock exchanges, the best gathering places for the most active trading groups and high-net-worth individuals with massive assets are naturally cryptocurrency exchanges. What they are competing for is not just user numbers on paper, but the gateway to a new generation of capital markets.

As blockchain technology matures from its wild early days, the era of on-chain trading may arrive soon. And now, we, the "esteemed ICE and NYSE users," are the pioneering "trading vanguards" and "investment pioneers."

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