Behind the big pump of 200%: How OKX reshaped the "CEX+L2" situation with a single announcement?

Author: Frank, PANews

On August 13, OKX released an upgrade announcement that triggered a violent market reaction, with OKB surging from $46 to a peak of $142.88 in a short time, achieving a maximum increase of 200% within an hour. The reason for such a dramatic market response lies in the fact that this announcement is not just a technical upgrade but appears to be a well-thought-out strategic shift. PANews conducts an in-depth analysis of the content behind this announcement to interpret the various impacts that OKX's recent positioning may produce.

The key content of this announcement can be briefly divided into the following points:

1. OKB economic model reconstruction: Through a one-time massive burn, the total supply will be permanently locked at 21 million, and the smart contract will be upgraded to remove the inflation feature, moving towards deflation.
2. X Layer Strategic Focus: Establish X Layer as the sole core of the OKX chain ecosystem and complete significant performance upgrades to support all future on-chain businesses.
3. Dual Chain Integration: OKT Chain will gradually exit the historical stage, and its token OKT will be exchanged for OKB at a fixed price, achieving the unification of value and ecology.

After the burn + merge, what should the price of OKB be?

The most direct trigger for the market this time is undoubtedly the brand new token economic model of OKB. OKX announced a one-time destruction of approximately 65.25 million OKB, permanently fixing its total supply at 21 million—this number is clearly benchmarked against Bitcoin. The destruction, calculated at the market price at the time, had a total value of nearly 3 billion USD, making it one of the largest destruction events in the history of cryptocurrency.

More critically, in order to provide cryptographic-level protection for this commitment, OKX announced that it will upgrade the smart contract of OKB after the burn is completed, permanently removing the functions of minting and manual burning. This means that the cap of 21 million will be hard-coded, unaffected by the will of any centralized entity. OKB has transformed from a functional platform token into a scarce core asset with the narrative of "digital gold."

However, there are still many issues that need to be addressed in this process. For example, what will happen to OKT on the OKT Chain, and what should the real price of OKB be after its surge?

In the announcement, the official stated that "the average closing price of OKB and OKT on the OKX exchange during the period from July 13, 2025, to August 12, 2025, ( 'average closing price' ) will regularly and automatically convert users' OKT into an equivalent amount of OKB." Additionally, before January 1, 2026, OKT holders can still recharge to OKX for conversion.

According to calculations, the exchange ratio of OKB to OKT is approximately 1:9.5. With the announcement made, OKT halted trading on various exchanges, and the final price settled around $10.3. Considering the current circulation of OKT at approximately 17.84 million tokens, the total circulating market value of OKT should be around $183 million.

On the other hand, before the increase, OKB had a total circulating market value of about 2.8 billion USD. Since OKT eventually merged into OKB, the total market value of both should be around 2.98 billion USD. Averaging over 21 million tokens, the price per token is approximately 141.9 USD. This price also corresponds to the market peak of 142 USD.

However, the merger of OKB and OKT cannot simply be viewed as a final market value answer of 1+1. After all, in addition to the token merger, the existing users, assets, and potential application scenarios within the OKT ecosystem will all be guided to the X Layer. This brings new demand and fundamental support for OKB. Therefore, this merger undoubtedly enhances the overall market value and ecosystem value of OKB, achieving an effect of "1+1>2."

The Battle of Dual Chains: Why Ultimately Choose X Layer?

The core of the recent announcement from OKX is a significant strategic decision regarding its on-chain ecological layout: after operating both the OKT Chain and X Layer public chains simultaneously, it ultimately decided to terminate support for the former and allocate all resources and future bets to the latter. This decision is not a simple "either-or"; rather, it is based on thoughtful consideration of technological generations, ecological strategy, and value narratives, choosing a more forward-looking and competitive development path.

To understand the inevitability of this choice, we need to review the development trajectories of both chains.

OKT Chain: Established in 2021, it is a Layer 1 public chain built on the Cosmos SDK, representing OKX's early exploration in the field of public chains.

X Layer: Launched in 2023 in collaboration with Polygon Labs, it is a zkEVM Layer 2 network built on Ethereum.

The announcement clearly states that the suspension of OKT Chain is due to its "high overlap" with X Layer. Rather than allowing two chains with similar functionalities to disperse resources, it is better to concentrate all efforts on creating a flagship. The clear positioning of X Layer in DeFi, payments, and RWA, along with an ecological fund and liquidity incentive program, can more effectively build a professional ecosystem with depth and a competitive moat.

From a technical and ecological perspective, the advantages of X Layer are comprehensive:

Technological Generation Leap: As a Layer 2 solution, X Layer inherently inherits the security of Ethereum and achieves high scalability through ZK technology. Its performance upgrade indicators are quite impressive.

Regarding this performance metric, OKX founder Star boldly stated on social media that this is far from the end: "For a zk-rollup, 5000 TPS is not a big deal. We will reach even greater heights."

Compared to OKTChain, the X Layer ecosystem as a Layer 2 has better compatibility with Ethereum and is more easily recognized by the market. From a technical perspective, X Layer is more suitable for OKX's key development focus on payment and high-frequency DeFi scenarios with its advantages of 5000 TPS and near-zero Gas.

Based on the current data, although X Layer has not been online for long, it is comprehensively ahead of OKT Chain in terms of total addresses, active addresses, and other aspects, which also indicates a higher level of market recognition for X Layer.

The prospects of OKX's X Layer are geometric.

Overall, this strategic upgrade is of milestone significance to OKX. However, in terms of the current market situation, it is a transformation that presents both opportunities and challenges.

In today's world where "CEX+L2" has become an industry standard, centralized exchanges have already established their layouts in public chains. Whether it is Coinbase+Base or Binance+BSC, both have established first-mover advantages in this model. Coinbase cleverly leverages its brand influence and compliant image in the U.S. market to create Base as a "cultural layer" and "social layer". It has become a gathering place for meme coins and SocialFi applications. BSC, on the other hand, has utilized Binance's traffic and liquidity to become one of the most active DeFi public chains. Although OKX entered the scene early on, its dual-chain model seems to have not established the desired effect. Now, as it strives to build X Layer, it faces significant challenges.

However, on the other hand, OKX currently has some advantages in its presentation.

1. First of all, OKX, as one of the leading exchanges to launch a Walllet entry in the industry, has accumulated a large number of users and a good reputation over the past year. This upgrade is a brand new enhancement based on the existing product line, and the optimization of performance and fees will also inject motivation for users.

2. Secondly, OKX Pay is one of the three major business segments of the OKX ecosystem (exchange, wallet, payment). Next, OKX Pay will default to using X Layer as its underlying public chain network. By building a high-performance X Layer, OKX provides a strong technical foundation for its payment tool OKX Pay, making it highly competitive in terms of speed and cost. At the same time, as a high-frequency application, OKX Pay will conversely bring a continuous flow of real users and transaction volume to X Layer, promoting the prosperity of the entire on-chain ecosystem, and ultimately returning value to the core token OKB, forming an ecological flywheel of "exchange-wallet-payment-public chain."

3. The global business capabilities that OKX has built up over many years of operation provide precise partnership resources for the ecological positioning of X Layer (DeFi, payments, RWA). For example, to tokenize real estate or bonds (RWA) in a certain country, it is necessary to collaborate with local financial and legal entities, which is precisely the expertise of OKX's BD team. They can introduce these "off-circle", high-value resources to X Layer.

4. Build a "super funnel" for user conversion. OKX has over 60 million users, and X Layer is designed as this "super funnel". By seamlessly integrating with exchanges and wallets, along with features like "0 Gas withdrawal", it minimizes the barriers for users to enter the blockchain, aiming to efficiently convert existing CEX users into incremental L2 users.

Therefore, the overall reform of XLayer and OKB can be regarded as another impact of OKX+L2, and it is also an important foundation for OKX in improving its three major business sectors: exchange, wallet, and payment.

Overall, the "bombshell" dropped by OKX may have an impact that goes far beyond the astonishing bullish candle on the OKB price chart. This is not just a simple technical iteration or a routine token burn, but a meticulously planned, interconnected strategic offensive. The rise in price seems to be just the clarion call for this transformation. With OKX's recent move, there may be another arms race of "exchange + chain" in the crypto market. The dust has yet to settle; let the bullets fly for a while.