Nine U.S. companies including Broadcom and Verizon object to tokenized trading on OKXICE

Nine U.S.-listed companies, including Broadcom, Verizon, UnitedHealth Group and CoreWeave, have objected to having their shares traded in tokenized form on OKXICE TSV, the tokenized stock venue set up by OKX and Intercontinental Exchange (ICE). OKXICE disclosed the objections in an updated public notice dated Oct. 15, listing each as a "Notice of Issuer Objection." The number of objecting companies has grown from one in the venue's first notice on Oct. 4 to four on Oct. 8 and nine on Oct. 15.

ICE is the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange. The venue's operator, OKXICE LLC, is a Texas limited liability company owned 50% by ICE and 50% by OKC USA, OKX's U.S. holding company.

From one objection to four, then nine

1. Sept. 17The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issues an order exempting tokenized securities venues (TSVs) from registering as exchanges. The relief runs through Sept. 17, 2031
2. Oct. 4OKXICE's first notice says it will offer 63 stocks, including Nvidia, Apple and Tesla, and reports an objection from Cerebras
3. Oct. 8Second notice adds AppLovin, Applied Digital and Rocket Lab, bringing the total to four. The 63-stock list is dropped from this version onward
4. Oct. 15Third notice adds CoreWeave, Verizon, Applied Optoelectronics, Broadcom and UnitedHealth Group, bringing the total to nine

The notice gives no reasons for the objections. Apart from Cerebras, all eight of the other companies were among the 63 stocks named in the first notice. That list also included crypto-related listed companies such as Strategy (MSTR), Coinbase (COIN), Circle (CRCL), Robinhood (HOOD), BitGo (BTGO) and Securitize (SECZ). None of them appears on the objection list as of the Oct. 15 notice.

One objection keeps a stock off that venue

Under the SEC order, a venue that wants to trade shares tokenized by a third party unaffiliated with the issuer must first notify the issuer in writing and wait at least 30 calendar days. If the issuer objects within 30 days of receiving the notice, the venue may not make that token available for trading. A venue that receives an objection must update its public notice within five business days. If the issuer does not respond, trading may begin.

An objection applies only to the venue that sent the notice. Nasdaq said in an FAQ for listed companies that there is no blanket opt-out covering all venues at once, and that it intends to opt its own shares (NDAQ) out of such venues. The order also caps trading. A single venue may trade up to 75 Tier 1 symbols, such as S&P 500 constituents, with each capped at 0.25% of the underlying stock's prior-month average daily volume. Other stocks (Tier 2) are limited to 250 symbols and 2.5%.

Traded against stablecoins on X Layer

According to OKXICE's notice, each tokenized share represents one share of the underlying stock. The third-party tokenizer holds the shares one-for-one through an SEC-registered broker-dealer and must pass through the same dividends and voting rights that ordinary shareholders receive. There is no order book. Trades execute in automated market maker (AMM) pools on the decentralized exchange Uniswap (v4), with each stock paired against one of three stablecoins: USDC, USDG or USDT. The venue will operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Only wallets that pass identity verification and sanctions screening receive a non-transferable soulbound token (SBT), and only wallets holding that token can trade. OKXICE warned in the notice that because prices are set by the ratio of assets in each pool, they may differ from the price of the underlying stock, particularly outside regular U.S. trading hours or when liquidity is thin. It has not announced a launch date.

Fees paid in OKB, a coin absent from Korean won markets

X Layer, the network the venue runs on, is an Ethereum layer-2 network operated by OKX, and its transaction (gas) fees are paid in OKB, the OKX exchange coin. As of midday Oct. 18 KST, OKB was not listed on the Korean won markets of Upbit or Bithumb. On OKX's spot market it traded at $115.91 at 12:30 p.m. KST on Oct. 18, with a 24-hour range of $113.54 to $118.10.