Six more companies, including Wells Fargo, Arm Holdings and Intuit, have objected to having their shares tokenized on OKXICE, a planned trading platform backed by crypto exchange OKX and Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), according to a regulatory document reviewed by Reuters.
The latest objections bring the total to 22 companies, complicating plans by OKX and ICE to offer tokenized versions of 63 stocks. The regulatory document does not specify why the companies objected.
The news follows earlier objections from Microsoft, Alphabet, Goldman Sachs, Qualcomm, Caterpillar, McDonald’s and Western Digital, which brought the total to 16 companies earlier this week.
Other companies, including Broadcom, Verizon, UnitedHealth and CoreWeave, had previously opposed the tokenization of their shares on the proposed venue.
OKX and ICE filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on October 5 to launch the platform under the regulator’s new five year innovation exemption.
The framework allows eligible platforms to trade tokenized stocks without complying with certain requirements imposed on traditional stock exchanges. However, issuers must be notified before their shares are tokenized and can block the proposed listings by submitting an objection.
The proposed platform aims to enable continuous trading and faster settlement of US equities through blockchain infrastructure.
OKXICE chairman calls issuer objections a natural response
The growing opposition comes despite comments from Andrew Cuomo, former New York governor and cochairman of OKXICE, who described the objections as an expected response to the introduction of tokenized equity trading.
Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Cuomo called the opposition a “very natural response,” noting that the framework was designed to allow companies to decide whether to participate.
Cuomo said the venture anticipated that some companies would wait to see how the market developed before allowing their shares to trade through the new infrastructure.
He also described the framework as a limited experiment, with restrictions on the number of participating companies and trading volumes.
Meanwhile, Nasdaq has expressed support for tokenization in principle but warned that insufficient regulatory safeguards could fragment liquidity and undermine price discovery.
Under the SEC’s exemption, tokenized shares must provide investors with the same rights as traditional equities, including dividend payments and voting rights.
The objections apply to the proposed OKXICE venue and do not necessarily indicate that the companies oppose all forms of stock tokenization.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Estefano Gomez. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.