Microsoft and Alphabet Join Opposition to OKXICE Tokenised Stock Plan

Microsoft and Alphabet have joined Goldman Sachs and McDonald's in formally objecting to plans by OKXICE to offer tokenised trading of their shares, adding weight to doubts over how readily US corporates will embrace tokenisation even as the regulatory path for such products has opened up.

OKXICE is a joint venture between crypto exchange OKX and Intercontinental Exchange, the operator of the New York Stock Exchange. The platform was set up to trade tokenised versions of US equities following a decision by the Securities and Exchange Commission in September that created a legal basis for such trading. The SEC's exemption runs for five years.

Under the terms of that exemption, platform operators must notify affected companies at least 30 days before tokenising their shares. If no objection is raised within that window, the operator may proceed to list the tokenised stock for trading.

Opposition still a minority

Despite the four high-profile objections, the numbers suggest the project remains viable. Of the 62 companies originally considered for the platform's trading roster, only 16 have filed direct objections so far. Nvidia, Apple, Amazon and Tesla are currently still listed among the companies whose shares OKXICE intends to tokenise.

Andrew Cuomo, the former Governor of New York who serves as co-chair of OKXICE, played down the significance of the objections from Microsoft, Alphabet, Goldman Sachs and McDonald's, describing the pushback as a "natural response to the planned change in stock trading."

No concrete start date for OKXICE's trading platform has been set.

What it means for Europe

For European investors and institutions watching the tokenisation of traditional securities, the episode offers an early signal of how US blue-chip companies are responding to a regulatory framework that remains untested in practice. The SEC's time-limited exemption and the objection mechanism built into it mean the shape of any eventual OKXICE offering, including which companies' shares are actually tradeable in tokenised form, could look markedly different from the original plan by the time trading begins.

With a majority of the 62 originally considered companies yet to formally object, the project's backers appear to be betting that resistance from a handful of large technology and consumer names will not derail the broader effort to bring tokenised equities to market.