According to Woofun AI, OKXICE, an on-chain stock platform that is a joint venture between OKX and the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), updated the public notice on October 19, and the number of issuers that clearly oppose tokenizing their shares has increased to 16. Technology and finance giants such as Microsoft (MSFT.US), Alphabet (GOOGL.US), Goldman Sachs (GS.US), Qualcomm (QCOM.US), Caterpillar (CAT.US), McDonald's (MCD.US), and Western Digital (WDC.US) are included in the latest batch. Compared to the 9 opponents announced on October 15, 7 new ones were added in just four days, showing the strong resistance of large institutions to this emerging trading model.
This collective withdrawal is not an accident, but a direct response to issuers' rights boundaries under the current regulatory framework, marking the first head-on collision between traditional capital market giants and decentralized financial infrastructure on the path of asset digitalization.
According to data compiled by Woofun AI, the core of this controversy stems from the five-year innovation exemption rule approved by the SEC on September 17. The rules allow exchanges to host real shares and mint tokens on-chain at a 1:1 ratio without registering as an exchange for investors to use stablecoins to trade in a 24-hour trading pool.
However, the rules set up a strict objection process: if a third party wants to tokenize a stock, the company must be notified in writing in advance; if the company does not respond within 30 calendar days, the venue can list the product; if the company objects in writing, the stock cannot be traded on that venue. OKXICE Co-Chairman and former New York Governor Andrew Como explained this as a “very natural response” during a conference call on October 20, pointing out that many companies tend to wait and see, and that the framework has limits on quantity and transaction caps, “essentially a sandbox.” The exemption only allows the trading of real equity tokens with dividends and voting rights, and strictly prohibits synthetic exposure, leverage, and quality lending. The upper limit of the first-tier stock pool is 75, and the turnover alone must not exceed 0.25% of the average daily trading volume of the previous month; the second tier was relaxed to 250 shares, with a ratio of 2.5%. Transaction data may be disclosed with a delay of 10 minutes.
Although the 0.25% transaction cap means it is difficult for OKXICE to shake the main market pricing power, issuers' concerns focus on what form and in which pool the shares are traded, and whether investors will mistake third-party tokens for company-endorsed products. The full list includes new economy companies such as CoreWeave (CRWV.US), Rocket Lab (RKLB.US), and Applied Digital (APLD.US), as well as traditional giants such as Verizon (VZ.US), United Health (UNH.US), and Broadcom (AVGO.US). Of the 62 companies and 63 codes that were originally planned to go online, 15 have been added to the opposition list. In addition to Cerebras, which are not on the list, about a quarter have opted out. Among them, Applied Optoelectronics (AAOI), according to the Wall Street Journal, publicly stated that it is uncertain about the impact of tokenization on stock prices, liquidity, and volatility, worried that investors will confuse unendorsed third-party tokens with the company's products, and “see no clear benefits to the company or shareholders.” The remaining 15 did not explain why.
Notably, after revising the text of the notice on October 19, issuers are allowed to tokenize themselves, and the right to object in the exemption is only for unrelated third parties, which reserves the right to self-issue large-cap stocks. Como claims that the mechanism works according to design, but the other side believes that the problem lies precisely in the design. Nasdaq (NDAQ.US) referred to such places as “shadow markets that may be disconnected from the wider market” in the guidelines at the end of September, indicating that they do not display the best quotes in real time, do not have a comprehensive market band, can disclose transactions 10 minutes late, and announced that they will withdraw their shares while promoting on-market tokenization with the same code, same order book, and only on-chain settlement. The Wall Street Industry Association SIFMA directly criticized the default mechanism in a letter to the SEC on October 19, arguing that silence would be too burdensome for issuers, and advocated changing to a more explicit consent arrangement in the permanent rules. Goldman Sachs opposes the tokenization of its shares by a third party. It does not contradict its layout on the blockchain; it opposes specific places and methods.
From a structural point of view, the three parties are not pointing to the stock chain itself, but rather the OTC trading pool using delayed pricing and proportional pricing to bypass the country's best quotation system, while imposing default consent on issuers.
The remaining 47 companies have yet to complete the 30-day window, starting with the first notice on October 4, and ending on November 3 at the earliest. Silence is not tantamount to agreeing to go online, nor is it tantamount to standing up; it only indicates that these companies have yet to make a decision about the site.
The more critical variable is the SEC's subsequent actions. If the permanent rules are changed to express consent, tokenized OTC transactions will change from a regular entry to an exception requiring house-to-house negotiations; if silence and acquiescence are maintained, the issuer's veto power will be reduced to a single-point game. Whether other trading venues will encounter mass objections, and whether issuers can implement self-tokenization is still uncertain. What this test actually tests is not whether US stocks can be traded on-chain, but whether issuers are willing to lend shares to off-market pools when default rights are handed over to silence.