Nine issuers have now objected to trading their shares on the planned OKX-ICE tokenised stock venue. A notice dated 15 October named eight new ones: Broadcom, Verizon, UnitedHealth, AppLovin, Applied Digital, Rocket Lab, CoreWeave and Applied Optoelectronics. Cerebras had already opted out.
The notice gave no reasons and did not say when the objections arrived.
The venue is a joint venture between crypto exchange OKX and NYSE owner Intercontinental Exchange. It told the SEC on 5 October that it plans to start with shares of 63 US-listed companies, trading around the clock through Uniswap v4 liquidity pools on OKX’s X Layer chain, settled in stablecoins. It leans on the SEC’s five-year innovation exemption, issued on 17 September.
Nasdaq has separately said it will opt its own shares out. A spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal it does not want them on a venue that shows no real-time best prices and does not report to the consolidated tape.
TD Securities analysts spoke to dozens of issuers and found little appetite beyond a few crypto-adjacent firms. Several said they had not known the framework existed until it was announced.
The analysts’ larger worry is that the relief is temporary. A future commission could reverse it, which gives institutions a reason to hold back even after launch.
What nobody has said is whether the objections shrink the list of 63, or whether the venue opens on schedule at all. Until the nine explain themselves, the opt-outs are the only evidence of what issuers actually think.
