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Even Nvidia doesn’t want its shares on OKX and ICE’s planned tokenized stock venue.
The chipmaker is among 12 new companies listed as objecting issuers in an updated notice from OKXICE TSV dated Friday. The others are Costco, Nike, Micron, CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks, Reddit, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Corning, Bloom Energy, IREN, and USA Rare Earth. The additions bring the total to 50 companies.
It’s the largest single batch yet. The list stood at 38 in the venue’s Oct. 28 notice, when Walmart and Eli Lilly joined, and at nine when the first objectors appeared on Oct. 15. It has more than quintupled since.
The newcomers span chips, cybersecurity, retail, and energy. Nvidia, Micron, and Corning join hardware peers such as AMD, Intel, and Broadcom, while CrowdStrike and Palo Alto Networks bring cybersecurity heavyweights to the list. IREN, a Bitcoin miner that has expanded into AI cloud computing, adds a name from the crypto industry itself.
Under the SEC’s innovation exemption, which the agency unveiled in September after the Clarity Act stalled in the Senate, a venue must notify a company before offering a version of its shares tokenized by an unaffiliated third party. If the company objects in writing within 30 days, the venue can’t make that stock available for trading, according to the SEC’s order. The objection applies only to that venue.
OKXICE TSV, a 50-50 joint venture between NYSE owner Intercontinental Exchange and OKX’s U.S. holding company, plans to let approved users trade tokenized U.S. stocks around the clock. Trades would run through permissioned Uniswap v4 pools on OKX’s XLayer blockchain, paired with stablecoins such as USDC.
None of the objecting companies have explained their decisions, but Nasdaq offered one possible rationale when it opted its own shares out of the exemption.
A spokesperson told The Wall Street Journal that Nasdaq doesn’t want its stock trading on a venue that doesn’t show the best prices in real time or report trades to the consolidated tape.
Further, Crypto in America reported that Nasdaq may be playing a role behind the scenes in encouraging companies to opt out of the OKX-ICE venture. “Our Nasdaq rep had reached out to us regarding OKX listing, suggesting we should object and that they would hold a call to discuss why,” an executive at a Nasdaq-listed company told the publication. “Nasdaq is definitely partly behind this,” the exec reportedly said.
OKXICE’s notice acknowledges it isn’t subject to Regulation NMS, the rules designed to ensure investors get the best displayed prices. It also warns that broker-dealers face unsettled questions about trade reporting and best execution on the venue.
Some of the market’s biggest names, including Apple, Tesla and Amazon, still haven’t appeared on the list.
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