Microsoft, Alphabet and Goldman Sachs join OKX-ICE tokenized stock objections

Microsoft, Alphabet and Goldman Sachs have objected to tokenized versions of their shares trading on OKXICE, according to the venture's updated public notice dated Oct. 19.

Qualcomm, Caterpillar, McDonald's and Western Digital joined them in the same document, bringing the disclosed tally to 16 companies from nine in the previous week's notice.

OKXICE announced its plans on Oct. 5, seeking to operate under the SEC's five-year "Innovation Exemption." That framework, unveiled last month, allows qualifying venues to trade tokenized U.S. stocks through automated market makers and liquidity pools while giving issuers an opportunity to object. The venture is a joint effort between crypto exchange OKX and Intercontinental Exchange, the parent of the New York Stock Exchange.

Fifteen of the 62 companies in the original roster have now objected, leaving 47 without a disclosed objection, while a sixteenth objector, Cerebras Systems, was outside the original roster. The original notice identified 63 tickers representing 62 companies, with Alphabet appearing through both share classes, so roughly a quarter of the proposed roster has pushed back.

Earlier objectors included Broadcom, Verizon, UnitedHealth, CoreWeave, AppLovin, Applied Digital, Rocket Lab and Applied Optoelectronics. CoinDesk reported the Broadcom and Verizon objections in an earlier story on issuer pushback against the framework.

The notice does not explain the companies' reasons or specify when they submitted their objections, so the record shows only that the list grew between the two filings. The document also does not state what weight an objection carries or whether a ticker is removed from the venue's plans. The framework gives issuers an opportunity to object, and 16 companies have now taken it. The notice says nothing about the status of the 47 companies that have not filed one.

Goldman's objection comes as it also works with crypto clients. In September it put a $100 billion Treasury fund on Lynq for digital-asset firms, with FTIXX remaining a traditional fund rather than a tokenized one and Lynq giving crypto firms a place to park cash between trades. The notice gives no indication the two positions are connected.

The venue would be entering a small market. The IMF put tokenized U.S. equities at roughly $2.3 billion as of July 31, inside a $65 billion tokenized real-world-asset market, and found tokenized U.S. stocks 1.5 times as volatile and less liquid, as this publication reported on Oct. 11.

OKXICE is not the only applicant working the exemption. Perpetuals.com filed on Oct. 14 to run a tokenized U.S. stock venue under the same route — the second firm to do so, per our reporting. Securitize has said it is aiming at the OKXICE venue for a planned 12-company tokenized stock launch that would settle in USDC.