The OKXICE, a joint venture between cryptocurrency exchange OKX and Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), owner of the New York Stock Exchange, presented a plan to create in the United States a market for tokenized stocks operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The initial proposal includes 63 US securities and depends on the new regulatory regime created by the SEC for this type of trading.
Trades would occur in Uniswap v4 liquidity pools on the XLayer blockchain, from OKX. Each tokenized stock would be traded against a stablecoin, among USDC, USDG or USDT.
The planned list includes companies such as Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Tesla, JPMorgan, Walmart, Coinbase, Circle, Robinhood and Palantir. The platform may serve retail investors, institutions and liquidity providers subject to identity checks, anti-money laundering and sanctions.
Tokens will have rights equivalent to those of the shares
The model requires that each token be individually backed by a real share held through a registered broker dealer. In addition to price exposure, the assets must preserve rights equivalent to those of the traditional shareholder.
This includes dividends, voting rights and participation in residual assets in case of liquidation. OKXICE states that it will verify the backing and the mechanisms for passing on these rights before releasing each asset.
The initiative uses the Innovation Exemption, approved by the SEC in September. The temporary regime allows onchain trading of tokenized US stocks by qualified platforms, under specific limits, and is expected to last five years.
Among the restrictions, Tier 1 stocks are limited to 75 symbols and to up to 0.25% of the average daily trading volume in the previous month per security. Companies tokenized by third parties also need to be notified and may oppose the trading.
The proposal does not yet mean the platform is operational. The rules require a TSV to publish its notice at least 30 days before the start of operations, and OKXICE has not yet announced a launch date.
