OKXICE's plan to list tokenized versions of shares in US-listed companies has run into fresh resistance, with Home Depot and GE Vernova joining Apple in asking not to be included on the platform.

Apple's objection makes it the latest Big Tech company to cross itself off the roster of firms that OKXICE told the Wall Street Journal it intended to list.

As of this report, Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, JPMorgan, Microsoft, Nvidia, Tesla and Walmart have all objected, pushing the opt-outs to 59, as confirmed in OKXICE's November 3 public notice.

Why is OKXICE trying to list tokenized shares?

OKXICE is a tokenization platform named after the two firms behind a 50-50 joint venture between the OKX crypto exchange and Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Its selling point is that it is a regulated venue offering tokenized versions of more than 60 US-listed stocks.

OKXICE told the Journal that its plan to list tokenized shares of the biggest US-listed companies, including the Magnificent Seven, remained on track. That comment came after the first round of objections landed around October 17. The objectors at that stage were AppLovin, Applied Digital, Applied Optoelectronics, Broadcom, Cerebras Systems, CoreWeave, Rocket Lab, Verizon and UnitedHealth Group.

The list of opt-outs grew to 22 by October 23, with Microsoft and Alphabet headlining a batch that included Arm Holdings, Intuit and Wells Fargo. IBM, Intel, Oracle and IonQ joined just days later, pushing objections to 26, as Cryptopolitan reported at the time. Cisco Systems, Goldman Sachs and Qualcomm have also said no to the OKXICE venue.

Why are companies saying no to OKXICE?

The entire OKXICE pitch rests on a five-year innovation exemption that the SEC issued in September 2026, running through September 2031. Under the order, a tokenized securities venue can trade tokenized versions of listed stocks without registering to become an exchange. When tokenization is initiated by such a venue rather than by the company itself, the venue must send a written notice to the issuer at least 30 calendar days before the tokenized shares become tradable.

Companies then have 30 calendar days from receiving the notice to either file a written objection or give consent. Silence counts as consent under the SEC's system, so firms that approve do not have to take any action, while companies that do not want a venue listing tokenized versions of their shares must file their objection within the 30-day window.

That distinction means the opt-out count measures companies' responses to this particular venue and notice process; it does not by itself show that every objecting issuer rejects tokenization in other forms.

Notably, an objection to one venue does not carry over to another. Companies must respond to each notice they receive separately, and none of this bars a company from issuing its own blockchain-based securities.

The SEC's notice system has drawn criticism from market groups, including the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA). In an October 19 letter, SIFMA president and CEO Kenneth E. Bentsen, Jr. urged the SEC that “Getting the foundations right from day one is essential.”

The Hunton Andrews Kurth law firm warned of deficiencies in the notice delivery system in an October 8 comment letter to the SEC. The firm noted that unsolicited crypto emails may end up in spam folders and that letters could get buried under piles in corporate mailrooms. It asked the Commission to require affirmative consent and to build a public database of companies that want out, rather than assuming consent when a company does not respond to a notice it probably never saw.

The Common Sense Leadership Fund took the pressure public, paying for a full-page ad in the Journal's October 24-25 weekend edition to tell CEOs to use the 30-day veto, citing price gaps between venues, hidden token holders and liability “for anything that goes wrong.”

Nasdaq, which plans to keep its own shares off venues using the exemption, declined to comment on claims that its representatives urged listed companies to avoid OKXICE.

Where tokenization goes next

The pattern points away from third-party wrappers and toward issuer-sponsored tokenization run under US rules. Securitize, which launched tokenized US stocks on October 8 and whose shares are expected to trade on OKXICE, is leaning into that reading.

CEO Carlos Domingo called the Common Sense ad “misleading” in an October 26 post on X, as Cryptopolitan reported, blaming “offshore synthetics” and describing the backlash as a tailwind for firms doing regulated tokenization.

Securitize president Brett Redfearn told the Journal that a company can object to one venue without rejecting tokenization outright.

OKXICE co-chair Andrew Cuomo, the former New York governor, has said he expects issuers to be skeptical and framed the venue as a first step.

The tokenized stock market was worth about $3.5 billion as of October 15, per The Block's data, up from roughly $680 million at the start of the year.