- OKXICE’s notice dated 23 October lists 22 companies that have objected, up from 16 in its 19 October notice.
- Under the SEC’s Innovation Exemption, a venue cannot trade a third-party tokenised stock if the issuer objects within 30 days.
- Nasdaq has told issuers to be cautious and plans to opt its own shares out of these venues.
Wells Fargo, Cisco, Moderna and Intuit have refused to let their shares trade in tokenised form on OKXICE, the planned venue owned by OKX and NYSE parent Intercontinental Exchange.
The venue’s latest public notice, dated Friday 23 October, lists 22 issuers that have filed objections. Arm Holdings and Marvell Technology are the other new names since the previous notice on 19 October, which listed 16.
Chip maker Cerebras Systems was the only objector in OKXICE’s first notice on 4 October. Since then, Microsoft, Alphabet, Goldman Sachs, Broadcom, Verizon, McDonald’s and UnitedHealth Group have also objected.
Sixteen of the objectors are listed on Nasdaq, Reuters reported. Those not on Nasdaq trade on the NYSE, which ICE owns.
OKXICE co-chairman Andrew Cuomo has said a wait-and-see approach from companies was natural, given how revolutionary tokenisation could be.
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The SEC issued its Innovation Exemption on 17 September, letting qualifying venues trade tokenised US stocks onchain for five years. Before listing a stock tokenised by an unaffiliated third party, a venue must notify the company that issued it.
The issuer then has 30 calendar days to object. An objection bars the stock from that venue only, according to Nasdaq, and the exemption offers no blanket opt-out.
OKXICE is a 50-50 joint venture between ICE and OKX’s US holding company. Its notice says trading will run 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in Uniswap v4 pools on the XLayer blockchain. Each tokenised stock in those pools trades against a payment stablecoin such as USDC or USDG. The notice does not say when that trading will start.
A third-party tokeniser holds each underlying share on a one-for-one basis through an SEC-registered broker-dealer. Token holders receive the same dividends and voting rights as shareholders.
Nasdaq Urges Caution
Nasdaq laid out its concerns in guidance for issuers last updated on 29 September. It noted that venues under the exemption do not have to display their best prices or report them to the consolidated tape. They can also publish trade data up to 10 minutes late.
Given these risks we believe issuers must be cautious about their participation in this initiative, as the consequences for liquidity, price discovery, and long-term shareholder value may not become apparent until well after the experiment is underway.
Nasdaq Nasdaq said it intends to opt its own shares out of such venues. It plans to launch its own tokenised stock platform next year, according to Reuters. TD Securities warned in March that tokenisation could split liquidity across trading venues, with the same stock trading at different prices.
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