OKX permanently burns $26B worth of OKB tokens

Crypto exchange OKX has carried out a permanent burn of 278,999,999 OKB tokens, erasing more than $26 billion worth of the cryptocurrency at today’s prices.

On Wednesday, the exchange also revealed it burned roughly 65.26 million tokens acquired through buyback initiatives and stored in company reserves — in a move to restructure its OKB tokenomics and reduce token supply to 21 million from 300 million tokens.

The exchange also plans to update the token’s smart contract to strip out minting features and manual burn mechanisms.

OKX is decommissioning its OKT chain

OKX is winding down its troubled OKTChain, with operations set to continue until Jan. 1, 2026. On Wednesday, the exchange halted OKT trading on the platform as part of its overhaul, canceled pending orders, and executed a burn of roughly $7.6 billion worth of tokens.

The burn resulted in the immediate price surge of the OKB token. The token spiked to $142 from $46 before falling to about $96 later. It also triggered a 13,000% jump in the asset’s trading volume, pushing it to $723 million amid a rush to exploit the supply squeeze. Currently, the token has an onchain market cap of about $2 billion.

Hasu, Flashbots Strategy Leader, noted that traders often misjudge circulating supply and that rapid supply contractions can fuel sharp, short-term rallies. OKX’s move echoes Binance’s BNB quarterly burns, which have historically driven price spikes.

OKX is updating its X Layer Network 

In 2023, OKX debuted its zkEVM-driven public network X Layer in partnership with Polygon. Now the platforms are moving to upgrade the X Layer into a public network, centered on DeFi, payments, and real-world asset (RWA) use cases.

On August 5, courtesy of Polygon, the X Layer completed the “PP upgrade,” fully integrating the latest iteration of Polygon CDK (formerly known as zkEVM). The upgrade also pushed transactions per second to 5,000 and cut down on gas costs.

The exchange also integrated its OKX Wallet with the X Layer network. It also enabled instant, gasless withdrawals and transfers of USDT and other major cryptocurrencies on the X Layer. The X Layer will also act as OKX Pay’s default public network. 

However, the substantial overlap between the X Layer’s new features and the OKT chain necessitated the exchange to start dropping maintenance and support for OKTChain, which explains the recent OKB token burns. 

Overall, the Ethereum L1 OKB is set for gradual discontinuation. Thus, holders have been advised to transfer their OKB to OKX Exchange and execute a one-click swap via “Withdraw to X Layer,” as future Ethereum withdrawals will not be supported.