Morning Minute: Tokenized Stock Venues Are Launching Without Big Tech’s Approval
Crypto exchange OKX will launch its tokenized stock venue OKXICE on November 23, despite 67 companies including all members of the Magnificent Seven having objected to their shares being tokenized.
The OKXICE venue will list more than 70 assets, with 59 being Direxion ETFs. The individual stocks making it through the objection process include Coinbase, Circle, Robinhood, Strategy, BitGo, Securitize and Better.com. Strategy is also tokenizing its preferred shares.
The objection count at OKXICE has risen from 22 in October to 67 as of November 5, with every member of the Magnificent Seven opposing the tokenization of their shares. Despite this, OKXICE is proceeding with its November 23 launch date.
Technical Implementation
Securitize handles the tokenization process, with each token backed one-for-one by a real share and carrying dividends and voting rights. Trading will run through Uniswap v4 pools on X Layer, OKX's Ethereum layer-2 solution.
Progress is being made, slowly but surely. It just gets built slowly, through transfer agents and clearing houses, by the incumbents.
Traditional Players Enter
The NYSE recently selected Avalanche to handle clearing and settlement for its own 24/7 tokenized securities platform, targeting a fourth-quarter launch after approximately one year of testing. The NYSE has signed agreements with Broadridge, Computershare, Equiniti and Superstate to support issuer-sponsored tokenized securities.
Meanwhile, DTCC launched its tokenization service on October 28 on the Canton Network, with 20 participants including Bank of America, Citi, JPMorgan and Citadel Securities. Morgan Stanley has already tested equities and Treasuries through this system.
Market Context
The OKXICE launch comes amid broader market developments, with Bitcoin trading at $72.8k (-2%) and Ethereum at $2,020 (-2%). MSCI confirmed it will remove MicroStrategy from its index on November 30, causing MSTR stock to drop 7%.
A CoinShares fund manager survey found regulation and corporate restrictions tied as the top barriers to buying crypto at 24% of respondents each, up from 16% and 9% in the prior edition, while volatility fell from the leading concern at 32% to around 18%.
Related
