Walmart Joins 37 Others in Blocking OKX-ICE’s Tokenized Stock Push

Walmart is among five companies that have objected to having their shares offered on OKXICE TSV, bringing the total number of objecting issuers to 38 in an updated notice dated Wednesday. The latest group also includes Eli Lilly, Cigna Group, Carnival and Arcos Dorados, expanding the opposition beyond technology and financial companies into retail, health care and travel.

The list grew from 33 to 38 in one day, with JPMorgan Chase, Coca-Cola and Dell Technologies among seven companies added in a notice dated Tuesday. Advanced Micro Devices, Adobe, Applied Materials and Sandisk completed that group. Before that, the tally rose from 26 to 33, and earlier from 22 to 26. The first list contained nine objectors on Oct. 15, increased to 16 on Oct. 19 with Microsoft among the names added, and reached 22 on Oct. 23 when Wells Fargo joined.

Arcos Dorados, the largest McDonald’s franchisee in Latin America, joins McDonald’s, which objected earlier this month. Eli Lilly and Cigna Group join UnitedHealth Group and Moderna among the health care companies on the list. Carnival also objected as the objections extended further beyond tech and finance.

Under the SEC’s innovation exemption, unveiled in September after the Clarity Act stalled in the Senate, a tokenized-stock 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 cannot make that stock available for trading. The objection applies only to that venue, while the notices do not disclose the companies’ reasons.

OKXICE TSV, a 50-50 joint venture between NYSE owner Intercontinental Exchange and OKX’s U.S. holding company, plans to offer approved users 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. The exemption caps the venue at 75 of the largest, most liquid stocks, with trading limited to 0.25% of each stock’s average daily volume, and permits up to 250 other stocks at 2.5%.

Companies including Nvidia, Tesla, Apple and Amazon had not objected, although they still have 30 days from receiving notice to do so. OKX and ICE have also said the venue can list shares tokenized by the issuers themselves, giving companies direct control over how their stock appears onchain.