OKB surged after OKX announced a plan to burn 65 million tokens, fixing the supply at 21 million and implementing a major upgrade for the X Layer network running on Polygon.
OKB – the native token of cryptocurrency exchange OKX – increased nearly 160% on Wednesday after the platform announced a plan to restructure its blockchain ecosystem and tokenomics, including a large-scale token burn.
This price surge, pushing OKB to as high as 135 USD from the day's low of 45 USD, occurred after OKX confirmed it would burn 65,256,712.097 OKB from previous buybacks and reserve funds. After the burn, the total OKB supply will be fixed at 21 million tokens.
OKX also stated it would upgrade the public chain based on Ethereum's zero-knowledge virtual machine technology (zkEVM) – X Layer – "to build it into a leading public chain focused on DeFi, payments, and real-world asset (RWA) applications."
According to OKX, the "PP" upgrade completed on 8/5 integrated the latest Polygon CDK technology, helping to increase transaction throughput to 5,000 TPS, reduce gas prices to negligible levels, and improve Ethereum compatibility for developers.
OKX Expands X Layer Ecosystem
The exchange plans to establish an ecosystem fund and provide liquidation incentives to attract developers. OKX Wallet, OKX Exchange, and OKX Pay will be fully integrated with X Layer, with OKX Pay choosing X Layer as the default chain.During the transition, OKTChain will be phased out. Native token OKT trading will stop on 8/13, with periodic conversions from OKT to OKB based on the average closing price until 1/1/2026. OKTChain is an EVM and IBC-compatible Layer 1 chain built on Cosmos.
The Ethereum L1 version of OKB will also be removed, with owners required to convert to X Layer. After the burn, OKX will upgrade the OKB smart contract to completely eliminate minting and burning capabilities.
OKX Considers US IPO
OKX is reportedly considering a public listing in the United States after re-entering the market in April. According to a June report by The Information, the exchange is contemplating an IPO on a US stock exchange, though OKX declined to comment.Notably, OKX is facing legal pressure in Asia. At the end of May, the Thai Securities and Exchange Commission announced it would block the platform's operations in the country, along with four other platforms including Bybit and CoinEx, and called on Thai users to withdraw assets before closure.
Earlier this month, the Philippines Securities and Exchange Commission also issued a notice naming 10 major cryptocurrency exchanges, including OKX, Bybit, KuCoin, Kraken, etc., for operating without a license under the country's new regulations.
