Verizon, Broadcom, UnitedHealth and six more say no: nine companies block their shares from the NYSE owner's new tokenized stock venue

The first test of corporate America's appetite for tokenized stocks has produced a row of refusals. OKXICE, the venture owned equally by Intercontinental Exchange and OKX, published a notice dated October 15 listing nine companies that have filed objections to their shares being offered in token form on its venue: Cerebras Systems, AppLovin, Applied Digital, Rocket Lab, CoreWeave, Verizon, Applied Optoelectronics, Broadcom and UnitedHealth Group.

Under the SEC's innovation exemption issued on September 17, a venue must notify a company and wait at least 30 days before trading a token of its stock. A timely objection blocks that stock on the venue that sent the notice, but not elsewhere. Eight of the nine were on the list of 63 stocks OKXICE filed on October 4; Cerebras was not.

The notice gives no reasons. An Applied Optoelectronics spokeswoman told the Wall Street Journal the company was unsure how tokenization would affect its share price, liquidity and volatility, The Block reported. Nasdaq will also opt out for its own shares, according to its FAQ as cited by The Block.

OKXICE plans to trade tokens against USDC, USDG and USDT in permissioned pools on X Layer, and told the Journal it still intends to list dozens of companies, including Nvidia, Apple and Tesla.