OKB rose by 180% in a single day due to the burn. Can it still rise after shedding the Platform Token exterior?

Jessy, Golden Finance

On August 13, 2025, the price of OKB skyrocketed by over 180% in a short period, soaring from around $47 to a peak of $141, setting a new historical high.

This market movement was caused by OKX’s announcement to burn 65 million OKB and lock the total supply at 21 million tokens. At the same time, OKX is performing a technical upgrade on the X Layer chain, significantly optimizing transaction speed and fees, while retiring the old OKTChain and swapping OKT tokens for OKB.

Why is OKB being burned? Is it because OK had to divest OKB for compliance before going public? What will the future development of XLayer look like? Does OKB still have upward momentum?

Burning is to shed the skin of platform tokens for compliant listing

OKX announced the destruction of over 65 million OKB, permanently locking the total supply of OKB at 21 million. This move is the most direct reason for the surge in token prices.

At the same time, OKX announced that its X Layer chain has completed an upgrade called “PP upgrade,” integrating the latest Polygon CDK technology, which enhances the network to 5,000 TPS, reduces gas fees to nearly zero, and significantly improves Ethereum compatibility, integrating into OKX Wallet, Exchange, and OKX Pay. Additionally, OKTChain will be retired, and OKT trading will stop on August 13, with OKT automatically converted to OKB at an average price.

This large-scale token burn is not the first time OKB has conducted a token burn. The burn mechanism for OKB has been set since its inception. The early burns were mainly based on trading fees from the OKX platform, with a certain percentage of profits allocated quarterly to repurchase and burn OKB. For example, in the most recent two quarters, on June 19, 2025, in the 28th round of burns, 42,437,632 OKB were burned, and in the 27th round of burns on March 14, 2025, 31,158,862 OKB were burned.

In addition to regular burns, OKB has also undergone several large-scale burns in its history. For example, in 2020, OKX announced the destruction of uncirculated OKB, gradually reducing the total circulating supply in the market. These burns aim to enhance the scarcity of OKB, thereby increasing its value. This burn of 65 million tokens is the largest in history, directly bringing OKB to a total supply of 21 million, similar to Bitcoin.

The project chooses to proactively burn tokens, generally to adjust the total circulation and thereby control inflation and manage market value. However, this recent burn of OKB is not merely for market value management; that is just the superficial reason. Many in the industry believe that this large-scale burn and ecological integration is a strategic preparation by OKX for its future listing plans.

For example, the platform token HSK of Hashkey Exchange has now switched to its public chain token, and the reason is also to seek listing.

Locking the total supply of OKB permanently at 21 million and separating it from the operation of the OKX platform is seen as an important step for OKX in terms of compliance. After this series of actions, OKB has transformed from a platform token into a public chain coin of the X Layer.

Previously, there were reports that OKX was planning to go public in the U.S., which means it must meet stringent regulatory requirements. If the platform’s token is directly linked to the company’s operating profits, it will undoubtedly be regarded as a security by U.S. regulators, thus creating significant obstacles for the listing.

Through this operation, OKX will position OKB as an ecological token rather than merely a platform equity token, which will undoubtedly better meet compliance requirements.

The future of OKB depends on X Layer

The year 2025 is actually the year when OKX will restart its compliance efforts in the United States.

It established a US subsidiary, OKX.US, and registered as a Money Services Business (MSB), initiating legal operations in accordance with federal and state compliance requirements in the United States. The headquarters is located in San Jose, California, and Roshan Robert has been appointed as the CEO of OKX USA. On April 15, 2025, the CEO of OKX USA officially announced the launch of the OKX centralized cryptocurrency exchange and the OKX Web3 wallet in the United States, with existing OKCoin customers seamlessly migrating to the OKX platform.

In terms of compliance measures, it has added KYC verification processes, enabled geolocation blocking, and launched an automated review system for anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism. It continues to seek compliance with licenses and proactively engages with FinCEN, CFTC, and SEC. All of these actions actually signify that OKX is seeking long-term compliance development in the United States. There are reports that it is seeking to go public in the U.S. The separation of OKB from the platform undoubtedly clears further obstacles for its listing.

So does OKB, as the ecological token of the X Layer in the future, have prospects?

At present, OKX’s upgrade and ecological integration of X Layer indicates that it may serve as a focus for future development. X Layer, as OKX’s self-developed L2 network, has a strong technical foundation. It inherits the high performance and high security of the OKX exchange, and significantly optimizes trading speed and costs after the upgrade.

Currently, X Layer can directly leverage the existing traffic of OKX, which may provide a significant advantage for its early development. At the same time, OKX may continuously inject funds and resources into the X Layer ecosystem through investments, incubation, and other means to attract more high-quality projects.

OKB may become an important payment and trading medium in the X Layer ecosystem. Users may use OKB for transactions on the X Layer, to pay for DApp service fees, and more. Of course, OKB may also be used for ecosystem incentives, governance voting, and so on.

However, the competition in the L2 track is intense at present, with leading L2s like Arbitrum and Optimism already forming strong ecological barriers. X Layer also needs to continue innovating in order to stand out in the competition. According to DeFiLlama data, X Layer is currently ranked 122nd among public chains, which is far behind the top Layer 2s.

Therefore, the future market value of OKB will depend on how much effort OKX puts into pushing the X Layer to a certain height, and what position OKB occupies within this ecosystem.

Currently, OKB indeed resembles a meme driven by emotional speculation, especially after it transitioned from being a platform token to a public chain token. Although 3/4 of the tokens have been burned, we can no longer price it as a platform token.