The no-chain parade grows: Nvidia and 11 firms reject OKX-ICE’s tokenized venue

Nvidia and 11 other companies have objected to having their shares offered on OKXICE TSV, bringing to 50 the total number of issuers opposed to participating in the planned tokenized stock venue. The latest group consists of Costco, Nike, Micron, CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks, Reddit, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Corning, Bloom Energy, IREN, and USA Rare Earth.

The additions represent the largest batch announced in the venue’s notice dated Friday. The total rose from 38 in an earlier notice dated Wednesday, when Walmart, Eli Lilly, Cigna Group, Carnival, and Arcos Dorados joined the list. It stood at 33 a day earlier, when JPMorgan Chase, Coca-Cola, and Dell were among seven companies that objected. The first objections appeared on Oct. 15, when nine companies opted out.

OKXICE TSV is a 50-50 joint venture between NYSE owner Intercontinental Exchange and OKX’s U.S. holding company. Under the SEC’s innovation exemption, unveiled in September after the Clarity Act stalled in the Senate, a venue must notify a company before offering third-party tokenized versions of its shares. 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.

The planned venue would allow approved users to trade tokenized U.S. stocks around the clock through permissioned Uniswap v4 pools on OKX’s XLayer blockchain, paired with stablecoins such as USDC. None of the objecting companies has explained its decision.

Nasdaq, which opted its own shares out of the exemption, said it doesn’t want its stock trading on a venue that does not show the best prices in real time or report trades to the consolidated tape. Crypto in America separately reported that Nasdaq may be encouraging other companies to object. “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.