Nine listed companies, including Broadcom, Verizon, UnitedHealth and CoreWeave, objected to tokenized versions of their shares trading on a platform run by OKX with ICE, according to a 15 October notice. Nasdaq also opted out for its own shares. The platform operates under the US SEC's innovation exemption, announced in September for five years, and initially targeted 63 stocks. Each token is backed one to one by shares held through a broker-dealer, with settlement in stablecoins.
What it means: The issuers' response highlights a question often overlooked in the tokenization debate: who decides whether a company's shares trade on a blockchain. Companies worry about accurate shareholder records, voting rights, price manipulation and investor confusion if a token drifts from the share price. The SEC framework appearing to give issuers a way to object is significant, because it means tokenized equities may only advance with issuer consent. In Europe, tokenized securities trade under the DLT Pilot Regime and MiFID, and ESMA has already raised concerns about products marketed as shares that do not carry the same rights. For Greek retail investors who see such products on international platforms, the key question is what exactly they are buying: a real share, a derivative or a claim against an intermediary. The answer affects rights, protection in insolvency and tax treatment. The same conflict will likely surface in Europe as these products spread.
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