Crypto exchange OKX permanently burns 279 million OKB tokens worth $26 billion: onchain data

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Quick Take

  • OKX permanently burned 278,999,999 OKB tokens — worth more than $26 billion at current spot market prices.
  • The burn was announced on Wednesday as part of an overhaul of OKB’s tokenomics.

Cryptocurrency exchange OKX, formerly known as OKEx, permanently burned 278,999,999 OKB tokens — worth more than $26 billion at current spot market prices — onchain data shows.

The transaction comes after the exchange announced on Wednesday that it would conduct a burn of approximately 65.26 million tokens accumulated through past buyback programs and held in company reserves as part of an overhaul of its OKB tokenomics model. The total burn amount has effectively capped the total supply down from 300 million tokens to 21 million tokens.

The tokenomics upgrade would also include an update to the token's smart contract to remove minting and manual token burns.

OKX's ill-fated OKTChain is also being discontinued, but will remain operational until Jan. 1, 2026. OKT tokens were reportedly converted to OKB at an exchange rate determined by average closing prices between July 13 and Aug. 12.

The price of OKB surged to over $120 per token following Wednesday's announcement, but has since retraced to approximately $96, according to The Block's OKB Price Page.

Responding to the price action, crypto researcher and Flashbots Strategy Lead 'Hasu' told The Block that "this episode is another proof that the market still overestimates the true float of many tokens — in some cases, dramatically so."

OKB currently has an onchain market cap of approximately $2 billion.


Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet that delivers news, research, and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor of The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the crypto space. Crypto exchange Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to deliver objective, impactful, and timely information about the crypto industry. Here are our current financial disclosures.

© 2025 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

AUTHOR

Adam is editor-in-chief of The Block. He is based in central Europe and was a managing editor, researcher and podcast host at the crypto exchange OKX's former research arm, OKX Insights. Before that, he co-founded BeInCrypto.com as its first editor-in-chief. Earlier, he served as the editor-in-chief at Bitcoinist.com. Before joining the blockchain and crypto industry, he worked for Looper.com, Grunge.com and SVG.com. He tweets via @XBT002 and can be emailed at [email protected].

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To contact the editor of this story: Timmy Shen at [email protected]

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