The Recent OKB Token Rally and Its Strategic Drivers

In August 2025, the token of the OKX exchange, called OKB, went on a historic run. And the token achieved its new peak in 2025, jumping more than 400% in just one week, breaking $250. But this wasn’t just a random spike. It reflected a deliberate shift in how the OKX team is reshaping the token’s model and long-term strategy.

Supply Driver: Overhaul of Tokenomics

The OKX team had constructed OKB, launched in 2018, as a utility token that offered privileges of trading and rewards for users. The privileges included discounted fees for trading, rewards for staking, and participation in Jumpstart. His initial tokenomics model had a maximum supply cap of 300 million and a buyback-and-burn system that was funded by exchange trading revenue on a quarterly basis. This model was a blend of BNBs in its earlier stages, which had a slow deflationary effect.

In the lead-up to August 2025, the price of OKB hovered in the $40-50 range, and the trading volume was $50-80 million, which is a far cry from other exchange tokens like BNB , which averaged $800-1200 million a day, and MX, which was at $15-20 million a day.

For more: OKX Referral Code 2025: “12554491” ($10,000 USDT SignUp Bonus)

However, following the announcement in August 2025, everything shifted. For the first time ever, in a single week, OKB’s market cap surged in value to 6 billion, surpassing market cap benchmarks considered as an achievement alongside leading blockchains. The token surged 400%, far surpassing the average performance of token exchange.

We are making a strategic upgrade to @XLayerOfficial, aiming to build a leading public chain focused on DeFi, payments, and RWAs.

Key updates:
1️⃣ Underlying tech – PP upgrade
2️⃣ Ecosystem development strategy
3️⃣ Deep integration with OKX Wallet, OKX Exchange & OKX Pay
4️⃣… pic.twitter.com/OU4EpKtuJz

— OKX (@okx) August 13, 2025

On August 15, 2025, a burn of 65.26 million tokens caused a supply shock that single handedly caused OKX to be forever fixed at 21 million. This was the single biggest burn in the history of cryptocurrency. There was a radical shift in the value of OKB. Previously, OKB’s value was tied to the company’s revenue based buybacks and burns. Now, its value is on the asset’s fixed supply and scarce premium akin to BTC.  

During this time, the market was also responding positively as the average cryptocurrency token’s price surged 400%, with a total trading volume of $80 million per day. There is a rare market matching this kind of liquidity growth. The only time it is comparable is when Binance released the BNB Chain in 2021.

For more: OKB Token ATH, Pumps 400% After 65 Million Token Burn Event

Demand Driver: The X Layer Upgrade

In 2023, OKX entered the Ethereum Layer-2 competition with Polygon by launching an L2 chain based on zkEVM. It utilizes zero-knowledge proofs for cost-effective and scalable transactions with OKB serving as the native token. Initially named OKX’s L2, the chain was rebranded to X Layer in April 2024 and rapidly gained infrastructure partners. It includes some of the big names, such as The Graph, QuickSwap, Curve, and Wormhole. All of these protocols served as the base layer of the growth of the early ecosystem.

As of August 18, 2025, X Layer had recorded 13.06 million transactions with a total transaction volume of 1.33 million OKB (approximately $150 million) and 378,000 OKB (around $43 million) bridged to the network. OKX’s Star noted how X Layer’s recent upgrades reset the windows with 5,000 TPS, near-zero fees, and a supply locked at 21 million on OKB. Star described the chain’s model as “one chain, one token” designed for DeFi, global payments, and real-world assets (RWA) supporting the ecosystem.

Considering the X Layer still lags behind its competitors, having only $6.5M TVL as of August 2025. In comparison, other blockchains such as BNB Chain, Arbitrum, and Polygon held $7.3B, $12.1B, and $5.6B, respectively. X Layer’s daily transaction volume continues to be in the hundreds of thousands, a stark contrast to the 5-12 million daily transactions rival networks are processing.

Some of these gaps stem from three unique challenges:  

• There are only seven major protocols live and operational for a given region, which creates a limited DeFi stack in comparison to other, fully operational chains that host dozens of protocols.  
• There’s a gap in conversion for payments; for example, OKX’s exchange user base of 60 million only accounts for a fraction of active, on-chain participants.  
• There’s a gap in stablecoin issuance relative to other chains, which leaves Real World Assets (RWAs) underdeveloped. For example, TRON has over $80B in USDT supply and Solana minted $5.5B USDC in just a month.

In summary, while X Layer has the exchange user base and the infrastructure to scale, the gaps in DeFi breadth, payments, and stablecoin in liquidity have to be resolved to be at par with the other L2 ecosystems.

Strategic Comparison: OKB and BNB

The strategy shift of OKB is very similar to the development path of BNB. Both started as exchange utility tokens and later became gas tokens of public blockchains. The key difference is tokenomics: BNB continues with quarterly burns tied to Binance revenue, reducing supply over time but not fixing it permanently; OKB immediately adopted a hard cap of 21 million, similar to Bitcoin.

The numbers make the contrast clear. BNB Chain commands around $7.3 billion in TVL, processes about 12 million transactions a day, and carries a market cap of $130 billion. In comparison, OKB’s ecosystem is still tiny—with just $13.9 million in TVL and only a few hundred thousand daily transactions. It’s early days for X Layer, but with OKX’s 50 million global users behind it, there’s at least a path where it could try to mirror the growth story that made BNB Chain so dominant.

For more: BNB Chain Gaming and NFT Ecosystem in 2025

Risk Discussion

Even though the market reacted positively, three key risks remain. The first one to consider is about short-term volatility. RSI indicators for OKB went above 85, showing overbought conditions. On-chain data from Nansen reported more than 20 million OKB (~$3.5 billion) deposited to CEXs within 3 days after the burn — a strong sign of profit-taking activity.

When it comes to Layer-2 competition, X Layer is still a small player. Its TVL is just $13.9 million, a fraction of what rivals like Arbitrum ($12B), Optimism ($6.7B), and Polygon ($5.6B) are holding. Unless it can quickly attract more dApps and liquidity, keeping long-term demand for OKB will be an uphill battle.

On the regulatory side, OKX is under real pressure. The exchange has already faced a $500 million fine in the U.S. and restrictions in several major markets. In consequence, it poses a great challenge to OKX to bring in developers and users to build momentum on X Layer.

Conclusion

The recent surge in OKB shows what happens when a big supply cut — like a massive token burn — lines up with a new source of demand from a Layer-2 upgrade. Together, those moves have completely reshaped how the market sees OKB. What used to be just a utility token for the OKX exchange is now being treated as a scarce asset with real on-chain use cases.

For OKB to hold onto its new status, the real test will be X Layer’s growth. It needs to scale up to billions in TVL, bring in millions of active on-chain users, and show it can navigate tough regulatory hurdles around the world. Without that, the recent rally may not last. With it, OKB has a shot at becoming a true “second BNB” and keeping its value over the long run.