X Layer Strategic Upgrade Plan
OKX announced on Wednesday that it will conduct a strategic upgrade of its zkEVM-based public chain, X Layer, transforming it into a leading public chain focused on DeFi (decentralized finance), payment, and RWA (real-world assets) scenarios. The core content of the X Layer upgrade includes underlying technology, ecological construction strategy, and deep integration with OKX applications.
In terms of technical upgrades, OKX stated that X Layer has fully integrated the latest version of Polygon CDK (formerly zkEVM), completing the “PP upgrade” on August 5, which significantly enhances network performance, including increasing TPS to 5000 to meet high concurrency transaction demands; reducing Gas costs to improve user trading experience; and enhancing security and compatibility to maintain a higher consistency with the Ethereum mainnet.
Regarding ecological construction strategy, X Layer will focus on three core application scenarios—DeFi, global payments, and the issuance and circulation of RWA. To attract more developers and project parties, the team will establish an ecological fund and liquidity incentive program. Meanwhile, X Layer will accelerate the improvement of critical infrastructure, including cross-chain bridges, oracle services, and compliance solutions, to expedite the implementation of ecological applications.
X Layer will also achieve deep integration with OKX’s services, including OKX Wallet, OKX Exchange, and OKX Pay, with OKX Pay set to adopt X Layer as its underlying public chain by default.
OKX also announced that, due to the high overlap in positioning and functionality with X Layer, OKTChain will cease operation at the beginning of next year. Starting from August 15, for users who still hold OKT at that time, OKX will periodically and automatically exchange users’ OKT for an equivalent value of OKB at a specific price.
OKB Economic Model Upgrade
According to the announcement, OKB will continue to serve as the sole Gas and native token for X Layer. Additionally, the Ethereum L1 version of OKB will gradually be phased out, and holders will need to withdraw and exchange their Ethereum L1 OKB.
OKX will also conduct a one-time burn of 65,256,712.097 historical repurchased and reserved OKB and will switch to an automatic burn of all OKB transferred to the black hole address via smart contracts. Upon completion of this operation, the exchange will cease manual burns of OKB, fixing the total issuance of OKB at 21 million. After the one-time burn is completed, OKX will upgrade the OKB smart contract to remove the functionalities for issuance and burning.
Following the release of this news, the price of OKB surged by 200% within two hours, with the trading price at $121 before the deadline.
