A growing number of major U.S. companies are pushing back against plans to trade tokenized versions of their shares on a new venue being developed by crypto exchange OKX and Intercontinental Exchange, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange. The objections include Microsoft, Alphabet, Goldman Sachs, McDonald’s, Wells Fargo and Cisco, bringing the disclosed total to 22 issuers.
The resistance is an early test for the Securities and Exchange Commission’s new innovation exemption, which was designed to allow tokenized securities trading. Tokenization generally refers to representing an asset, such as a company share, as a digital token that can be traded using blockchain-based infrastructure. The SEC framework initially appeared to offer a quicker route for U.S. equities to move onto crypto-oriented trading systems. The first practical test, however, has highlighted the concerns companies have before allowing third parties to create and trade those digital representations.
Why companies are objecting
Under the exemption’s process, a trading venue must notify an issuer before trading its shares and provide 30 days for the company to object. If the issuer does not respond within that period, trading can begin.
That structure gives companies a formal opportunity to block a proposed listing, but it also encourages caution. Latham & Watkins has warned issuers that failing to object may become an effectively irrevocable decision. The SEC order does not provide a process for objecting after the 30-day period has ended or withdrawing a previous non-objection once trading starts.
For legal and investor-relations teams encountering an unfamiliar market structure, rejecting the proposal while they seek information may therefore be the least risky option. Dave Hendricks, chief executive and founder of tokenization firm Vertalo, told CoinDesk that many companies were unaware a third party had tokenized their stock until they received the OKX-ICE notice.
The questions that follow are practical as well as regulatory. Companies need to understand who holds the shares supporting each token, how dividends and voting rights would reach token holders, and what information would be visible to the official transfer agent. If those issues cannot be resolved within 30 days, objecting can be a rational response rather than a definitive rejection of blockchain-based securities.
Olivia Vande Woude, head of tokenization at Ava Labs, said the objections should not necessarily be interpreted as a judgment on OKX-ICE. Because this is the first venue to issue notices under the SEC’s innovation exemption, it is also the first venue requiring companies to answer these questions. Since objecting costs nothing while silence is treated as consent, she expects the list of objectors to continue growing.
A debate over market structure
The response from Nasdaq illustrates why opposition to a specific venue does not automatically amount to opposition to tokenization. Nasdaq has publicly supported tokenized securities and is developing its own approach, yet Nasdaq Inc. said it intends to object to tokenized versions of its own NDAQ-listed shares being traded on venues operating under the current exemption.
Nasdaq’s concern is focused on how such venues would function outside the established National Market System. The exchange operator has warned that separate trading venues could fragment liquidity, weaken price discovery and lack protections including real-time displays of the best available prices and consolidated-tape reporting. Nasdaq’s proposed model would keep tokenized securities within the existing exchange framework.
Issuers must also decide whether the commercial benefits justify the operational and market risks. Reid Noch, vice president of U.S. equity market structure at TD Securities, said the potential upside remains difficult to measure. Tokenization could create additional demand for U.S. shares, especially from investors outside the United States, but that possible benefit must be weighed against the prospect of thin, round-the-clock trading outside familiar market structures.
The objections therefore appear to reflect uncertainty over governance, investor protections, market quality and issuer benefits—not necessarily a blanket refusal to consider digital representations of shares.
What happens next
Not every company is objecting. Securitize, a firm focused on tokenized securities, told CoinDesk it does not plan to oppose inclusion on the OKX-ICE venue. Digital-asset custodian BitGo also said it would not object. Both companies have a commercial interest in the expansion of tokenized assets, but their positions show that participation is possible where issuers or market participants are already comfortable with the model.
Securitize chief executive Carlos Domingo described education as an important part of the process. The company said it has been contacting issuers that are, or could become, involved with its tokenized stocks. Its outreach includes webinars covering different trading models, shareholder rights and the associated trade-offs.
That points to a slower development path for the SEC experiment. The exemption may have removed one regulatory obstacle to tokenized stock trading, but it has also exposed the information gap between new trading venues and traditional public companies. Further participation may depend on explaining how ownership, voting, dividends, custody and market safeguards would operate in practice.
The early objections are consequently more informative than conclusive. They show that companies want a say in how their shares are placed on blockchain-based systems, while leaving open the question of whether better-defined structures and greater familiarity can bring more issuers into the market.
Current market picture
Moneyiar market data at 22:39 on October 25, 2026, showed mixed performance among the listed digital assets:
- Cronos (CRO) was priced at $0.054290275, down 1.83% over 24 hours and 3.03% over seven days.
- Compound (COMP) stood at $21.1287447338, down 10.42% over 24 hours but up 0.3% over seven days.
- AKEDO (AKE) traded at $0.031015752, up 0.8% over 24 hours and 2.5% over seven days.
- aelf (ELF) was at $0.0669372345, gaining 1.82% in 24 hours and 8.51% over seven days.
