Public companies object to OKX-ICE’s tokenized stock plan

Nine listed companies have formally objected to having their shares offered in tokenized form on the proposed tokenized stock platform backed by OKX and Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

The companies included Cerebras Systems, AppLovin, Applied Digital, Rocket Lab, CoreWeave, Verizon Communications, Applied Optoelectronics, Broadcom and UnitedHealth Group, according to a Thursday notice by OKX and ICE.

The notice did not disclose the reason behind the objection. Under the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Sept. 17 innovation exemption announcement, tokenized venues must give issuers written notice and an opportunity to object before listing third-party tokenized stocks.

“Issuers aren’t objecting to the blockchain. They’re objecting to not knowing what happens to their price once it trades there,” Robin Nordnes, CEO of trading validation platform Raiku, told Cointelegraph. “On a public chain, the validator building the block sets the order. Until desks can measure their distance to that point, best execution is a promise, not a number.”

The objections highlight a potential hurdle for tokenized stocks and test whether crypto platforms can create blockchain-based markets for public company shares without issuer cooperation.