✓ Official source
CoreWeave, Broadcom and Verizon among nine companies objecting to tokens of their shares on the OKX-ICE venue
Summary
Nine U.S.-listed companies, including CoreWeave, Broadcom, Verizon and UnitedHealth Group, have filed objections to tokenized versions of their shares trading on OKXICE TSV, the tokenized securities venue owned 50-50 by NYSE parent Intercontinental Exchange and OKX’s U.S. holding company, according to the venue’s public notice dated Oct. 15.
The notice lists Cerebras Systems, AppLovin, Applied Digital, Rocket Lab, CoreWeave, Verizon, Applied Optoelectronics, Broadcom and UnitedHealth without giving reasons; The Defiant reported that the first four had objected earlier, and The Block said eight of the nine were among the 63 tickers OKXICE named on Oct. 4 as stocks it intended to offer, while Cerebras was not.
Under the SEC’s Sept. 17 innovation exemption, a venue that wants to list a company’s stock tokenized by a third party must notify that company, which then has 30 calendar days to object, and a timely objection bars that venue from offering the token, according to The Block and The Defiant.
A spokeswoman for Applied Optoelectronics told The Wall Street Journal the company objected because it was unsure how tokenization would affect its stock price, liquidity and volatility, The Block reported, adding that OKXICE told the Journal it still plans to launch trading for dozens of companies, including Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft and Tesla.
The venue is not live yet and the notice gives no launch date; it describes permissioned Uniswap v4 pools on OKX’s X Layer network in which each tokenized stock trades against the USDC, USDG or USDT stablecoins.
Key facts
- OKXICE LLC, the Texas company that operates the venue, is 50% owned by Intercontinental Exchange Holdings and 50% by OKC USA Holding, according to the notice.
- Only wallets holding a non-transferable “soulbound” token issued by OKXICE TSV may trade in or provide liquidity to its pools, and OKX Inc. performs identity, anti-money-laundering and sanctions checks on the venue’s behalf, the notice says.
- The notice says a third-party tokenizer, acting through an SEC-registered, FINRA-member broker-dealer, holds the underlying shares one-for-one against tokens outstanding, and that holders must receive the same rights as ordinary shareholders, including dividends and voting rights.
- OKXICE TSV says it is not registered with the SEC in any capacity for these activities, is not subject to Regulation NMS, and that the SEC has not passed on the accuracy of its notice.
- Nasdaq said in an FAQ on its website that it would opt out of having its own shares tokenized under the SEC’s framework; a spokesperson told the Journal it does not want its shares on a venue that does not display best prices in real time or report to the consolidated tape, The Block reported.
- OKXICE co-chair Andrew Cuomo, the former New York governor, told the Journal he expects companies to be skeptical of tokenizing their stock and described the venue as a first step toward tokenizing securities, according to The Block.
- Stocks tokenized by Securitize, which launched tokenized U.S. stocks on Oct. 8, are expected to trade on OKXICE, the Journal reported, per The Block.
- The value of tokenized stocks reached about $3.5 billion as of Oct. 15, up from about $680 million at the start of the year, according to The Block’s data.
- The Defiant said OKXICE notices must be updated within five business days of each objection.
- An objection applies only to the venue that sent the notice, so each new venue starts its own 30-day clock, and companies are not required to approve listings affirmatively, according to The Block.