OKX-ICE venture outlines tokenized US stock venue

More than 60 U.S.-listed stocks are on the planned menu for OKXICE’s tokenized trading venue. The OKX and Intercontinental Exchange joint venture says its permissioned platform would let approved users trade blockchain-based versions of those shares.

The Block reported on Oct. 5 that OKXICE had notified the SEC of its plan under the agency’s new “Innovation Exemption.” The venture’s Oct. 4 public notice describes the proposed venue and says it is not registered with the SEC for those activities.

How would OKXICE’s stock venue work?

The notice says the venue would use permissioned automated market maker pools, where participants trade against a pool of assets rather than matching buy and sell orders on an order book. The pools would run on XLayer, OKX’s public blockchain, using Uniswap v4 contracts and an OKXICE smart contract to restrict access.

Approved participants would trade tokenized stocks in pairs with USDC, USDG or USDT. To qualify, users would need to pass identity, anti-money laundering and sanctions checks, connect a self-custodial wallet and receive a non-transferable soulbound token that enables trading.

For tokens issued by an unaffiliated third party, the notice says a registered broker-dealer would hold the underlying shares one-for-one. Each token would represent a security entitlement to one share, with ownership recorded on-chain and reconciled with the tokenizer’s records.

Which stocks could be listed, and what rights would tokens carry?

The proposed list includes Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Tesla, Coinbase, Robinhood, Circle and SpaceX, among other companies. OKXICE says each tokenized stock would be paired with one of the supported stablecoins.

The venue says it would check that token holders receive the same rights and privileges as holders of the corresponding share, including dividends and voting rights. Its notice also says the platform had received an issuer objection from Cerebras Systems as of Oct. 4, so that stock is not an unqualified listing.

Does the SEC exemption mean the venue is approved?

No. The SEC’s Sept. 17 order created temporary, conditional relief for certain tokenized securities venues, but OKXICE’s own notice says it is not SEC-registered for this activity. The notice says the venue remains subject to SEC oversight and could face enforcement if it operates outside the exemption’s conditions.

The SEC’s framework requires venues to verify that tokenized shares preserve equivalent shareholder rights, make smart contracts auditable and public, and halt token trading when trading in the underlying stock stops. The exemption is set to expire five years after publication, and the agency has requested public comment.

For you, the filing describes a proposed market structure, not a live stock-trading service. OKXICE has outlined how access, tokens and liquidity pools would work; the notice does not say when trading will begin.

Sources

• The Block reported — theblock.co
• Oct. 4 public notice — okx.com