Nine U.S. -listed companies have objected to having tokenized versions of their shares traded on OKXICE, a planned venue operated by crypto exchange OKX and Intercontinental Exchange, the parent of the New York Stock Exchange. The companies include Broadcom, Verizon, UnitedHealth, AppLovin, Applied Digital, Rocket Lab, CoreWeave, Applied Optoelectronics and Cerebras Systems.
The objections were disclosed in an October 15 notice. An issuer that objects within that period blocks the token from trading on that specific venue, while silence allows the listing to proceed.
The proposed venue would offer trading around the clock through automated market makers and Uniswap v4 liquidity pools on OKX’s XLayer blockchain, with settlement in stablecoins. The underlying shares would be held one-for-one through a registered broker-dealer, and token holders would be entitled to equivalent economic and voting rights, including dividends.
The plan relies on the SEC’s September 17 Innovation Exemption, which gives qualifying Tokenized Securities Venues temporary relief from the exchange definition and gives certain liquidity providers temporary relief from dealer registration requirements.
Nasdaq has separately said it will not allow its own shares to be tokenized under the framework. The exchange has objected to trading on a venue that does not show the best prices in real time or report transactions to the consolidated tape, the system that combines stock-market trading data.
The issuer objections add a practical constraint to a regulatory framework intended to bring blockchain-based stock trading into a supervised U.S. Analysts who spoke with dozens of issuers described limited interest beyond a small group of crypto-focused companies and identified the exemption’s temporary nature as a major obstacle to investment in supporting infrastructure. The SEC is accepting public comments while it considers whether changes to the framework are warranted.