OKXICE sets Nov. 23 open for tokenized stock trading

OKXICE, the joint venture between crypto exchange OKX and New York Stock Exchange parent Intercontinental Exchange, will open its tokenized securities venue for trading at 9 a.m. ET on Nov. 23, Unchained reported. The venture said it has confirmed more than 70 assets, though a representative said not all of them may trade on opening day.

The lineup includes tokenized shares of Better.com, BitGo, Circle, Coinbase, Robinhood, Securitize and Strategy, which the venture said will also list its preferred stocks. Direxion is adding 59 exchange-traded funds. OKX expects the venue to list more than 70 assets in total, Cointelegraph reported.

Trading runs through automated market maker pools on Uniswap v4, deployed on X Layer, the Ethereum layer-2 chain OKX runs, and only approved wallets can trade or add liquidity, according to the venture's Nov. 5 public notice as summarized by Unchained. Securitize provides the tokenization infrastructure. Each token is a "security entitlement" backed one-for-one by a U.S. share and recorded on the tokenizer's books. Holders keep the applicable shareholder rights, such as dividends, voting and taking part in corporate actions, and buyers keep the tokens in their own wallets, the venture said.

At launch, the venue is open only to eligible U.S. customers of OKX Inc. who pass know-your-customer checks, set up the required OKX wallet and onboard with OKXICE.

The debut puts the SEC's Innovation Exemption to its first real test. The five-year order, issued Sept. 17, lets qualifying venues trade tokenized stocks without registering as exchanges. Before listing a stock tokenized by an unaffiliated third party, a venue must give the issuer written notice and a chance to object. The venture's own public notice, dated Nov. 5, lists 67 issuers that had sent it a notice of objection by that date, among them Apple, Amazon, Tesla, Meta, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, McDonald's, SpaceX and Coca-Cola, according to Unchained and Cointelegraph.

Former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, who co-chairs OKXICE with Trabue Bland, said in the announcement that investors will have "the same rights, protections and ownership that come with the underlying shares." Circle chief commercial officer Kash Razzaghi said the venue delivers tokenized securities "through a compliant framework built on real shares and real shareholder rights." Strategy chief executive Phong Le called tokenization of the company's stocks on the venue "a natural next step."

Liquidity concerns remain part of the rollout. An International Monetary Fund study published in October found tokenized stocks were about 1.5 times as volatile as the same stocks in traditional markets, with decentralized exchanges showing the weakest liquidity, Cointelegraph reported. Nasdaq argued in a January filing that trading tokenized stocks on platforms outside traditional rails could fragment liquidity and make it harder for investors to get the best available price. Nasdaq separately said it would opt out of having its own shares tokenized under the framework.

ICE and OKX have been building the venture since June. The announcement did not commit to which of the 67 objecting issuers would be excluded on day one; under the terms of that exemption order, an issuer's written objection blocks that company's shares from trading on this specific venue, while the public notice must be updated within five business days of the objection.

Cointelegraph reported that distributed value of tokenized stocks and ETFs reached $3.88 billion on Nov. 11, up 13.4% over 30 days. The IMF study also warned that combining trading and settlement on a blockchain could remove safeguards that help markets absorb shocks as the sector grows.

ICE and OKX formed the joint venture in June, after ICE invested in OKX at a $25 billion valuation in March, Unchained reported.