The cryptocurrency exchange OKX has officially announced a series of upgrades to its X Layer network, along with optimizing the tokenomics of OKB, creating a strong effect that pushed the price of OKB to a historic peak of $134.
X Layer Completes PP Upgrade
X Layer, OKX’s core blockchain built on zkEVM technology in collaboration with Polygon since 2023, completed its “PP Upgrade” on August 5, 2025. This upgrade integrates the latest version of Polygon CDK, bringing significant improvements:
- Processing Speed: Achieving 5,000 TPS
- Transaction Costs: Gas fees are nearly zero
- Compatibility: Enhanced synchronization with Ethereum
The new development strategy for X Layer focuses on three main areas: DeFi, global payments and real-world assets (RWA), supported by an ecosystem development fund, liquidity incentives, cross-chain bridge upgrades, oracles and compliance services.
Due to functional overlap with X Layer, OKX has decided to discontinue support for OKTChain according to the following timeline:
- August 13, 2025: OKT trading ceases on OKX
- August 15, 2025: All user-held OKT will be automatically swapped for OKB based on the average closing price from July 13 to August 12, 2025
- January 1, 2026: OKTChain officially shuts down
Permanent Burn of 65 Million OKB
The most significant move is the permanent burn of 65,256,712.097 OKB tokens, all accumulated from buyback programs and reserve funds. After this, the total supply of OKB will be permanently fixed at 21 million tokens.
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Changes to Tokenomics
- The OKB smart contract has been upgraded to eliminate the ability to mint new tokens or manually burn them.
- Any future changes to the total supply will be done automatically.
- The version of OKB on Ethereum will be gradually phased out.
- OKX will stop supporting withdrawals of OKB to Ethereum to unify the ecosystem around X Layer.
The announcement of the token burn created a strong scarcity effect. The price of OKB surged over 200% in less than an hour, reaching a historical peak of $134 before adjusting to $124 at the time of writing.
This move has been positively received by the market, demonstrating OKX’s commitment to building a sustainable ecosystem around X Layer and optimizing the value of the OKB token.
