Original ｜Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)
Author｜Golem (@web3_golem)
On September 17, the U.S. SEC issued an innovation exemption order (Release No. 34-106402), effective for five years until September 17, 2031. This document formally established a legal channel for tokenized U.S. stock trading.
The order provides two exemptions: qualifying tokenized securities trading venues (TSVs) are exempt from being recognized as "exchanges," and institutions providing liquidity to TSVs (Covered Firms) are exempt from being recognized as "dealers." TSVs may operate AMM liquidity pools on public blockchains for permitted participants, trading tokenized NMS stocks; if tokenization is initiated by an unaffiliated third party, the listed company has a 30-calendar-day objection period after receiving notice.
According to the SEC's official website, as of now, three companies have notified the SEC of their intention to operate TSVs under the innovation exemption: TSV LLC (submitted on September 23), OKXICE (submitted on October 4), and Kephas Corp. (submitted on October 14, operating under the name Perpetuals.com). The SEC also stated that inclusion on the list does not mean these three companies have met the exemption conditions.
Odaily Planet Daily will introduce the above three TSVs in this article, including shareholding structure, trading fees and thresholds, stock lists, and current progress.
OKXICE: Plans to List 63 Stocks, Already 22 Objections
OKXICE is a joint venture equally owned 50/50 by OKX and Intercontinental Exchange (ICE, parent company of the New York Stock Exchange), registered in Texas. Its co-chairs include former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who is also a member of OKX's global board. OKXICE plans to operate on OKX's self-developed Ethereum L2 network X Layer, with tokenized stocks paired with USDC, USDG, and USDT.
OKXICE's fees are two-tiered: first, a service fee charged per transaction, paid in stablecoins and deducted before trading, with the rate not yet announced; second, a liquidity pool fee for each trading pair, distributed to LPs in proportion to their contributions. Traders also need to pay X Layer network gas fees.
OKXICE has KYC requirements. Individual participants must provide name, date of birth, residential address, nationality, and social security number; institutional participants must provide the institution's legal name, address, organizational structure, registration number, corporate documents, and identity information of key personnel and owners.
OKXICE first published a public notice on October 4, intending to list 63 stock symbols corresponding to 62 U.S. listed companies. The objection period is 30 calendar days from the date each issuer receives the notice, so the earliest opening would be early November; the official website currently marks it as "coming." As of October 24, 22 of the 62 companies have objected, including CoreWeave, Broadcom, Cerebras, Microsoft, Alphabet, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Arm, and Intuit.
List of listed companies that refused OKXICE's tokenized stock issuance
Most companies did not explain their reasons for objection, nor did they disclose whether they coordinated their positions with other issuers. Applied Optoelectronics (AAOI) is one of the few companies to publicly explain, stating that this regulatory framework is still very new, the impact on stock price, liquidity, and volatility cannot be predicted, and at this stage there is no clear benefit, "we don't see a clear benefit to AAOI or its shareholders," and it is concerned that investors may mistakenly believe the tokenized product has the company's endorsement.
Dan Gibbons, a partner at Latham & Watkins law firm, which advises listed companies on responding to stock tokenization requests, also said: "Issuers don't want to try something new and concerning without incentives; what we're seeing is a lot of hesitation."
Under the SEC order, if a company raises a valid objection, the TSV may not list its tokenized stock and must disclose the objection in public filings. With 22 out of 62 objecting, OKXICE's first batch of tradable targets has already shrunk by more than one-third. This trend may also pose resistance to OKXICE's operations and the SEC's vision of promoting tokenized U.S. stock trading.
TSV LLC: Respects Voluntary Issuance by Listed Companies
TSV LLC is jointly owned by Obsidian Systems co-founders Ali Abrar and Ryan Trinkle (50% each), registered in Puerto Rico, USA. The platform plans to operate on the Canton Network, and Ryan Trinkle also serves on the board of the Canton Foundation. (Odaily note: Canton is the last crypto-native project publicly disclosed as an investment by a16z crypto before it announced its renaming)
TSV LLC uses Obsidian's automated market maker software Tradecraft, designed similarly to Uniswap v3, with initial paired assets being USDC and SBC issued by Brale, both issued on the Canton Network. Tradecraft also provides TSV LLC with software development, maintenance, technical support, monitoring, and some operational and trading supervision systems. It should also be noted that Tradecraft is itself building a tokenized securities trading platform, Tradecraft ATS—there is a potential competitive relationship between the software vendor and the platform.
In terms of fees, for standard pools, TSV LLC sets a base swap fee of 0.30%, of which 0.20% is distributed to liquidity providers and 0.10% to TSV LLC. TSV LLC also has KYC requirements for traders.
TSV LLC first published a notice on September 23, officially stating that it would not begin operations until the 31st calendar day from the date of the notice (October 24) at the earliest, with the final launch expected in early November.
TSV LLC has not published a specific list of tokenized stocks it plans to issue, nor does it have any rejection records. The reason is likely related to its issuance mechanism: TSV LLC stipulates that tokenized stocks are only tokenized on a voluntary basis by the issuer's transfer agent under the issuer's authorization. Therefore, the "issuer notice + objection" process is not triggered.
Kephas Corporation: Self-Developed L2, Permissioned AMM Liquidity Pools
Kephas Corporation is an indirect wholly-owned U.S. subsidiary of Nasdaq-listed company Perpetuals.com (NASDAQ: PDC), registered in Delaware.
Perpetuals.com is headquartered in Tokyo and was formed in January 2026 through the merger of Perpetuals.com Group and EarlyWorks. Its co-founder and Co-CEO is Patrick Gruhn, who was previously the head of FTX Europe. The Swiss company Digital Assets AG, which Gruhn co-founded in 2021, had partnered with CM-Equity to provide platforms such as Binance and FTX with linked tokens for stocks such as Tesla and Coinbase, and was later acquired by FTX Group. Therefore, Perpetuals.com is one of the earliest companies to begin businesses related to stock tokenization and has a certain operational foundation(Odaily note: the earliest stock tokens only provided price exposure and did not include voting rights).
Kephas will run on Kronos X Public, the Ethereum L2 network developed in-house by Perpetuals.com, with tokenized stocks initially paired with USDC. In terms of fees, each Swap charges 0.30%, of which 0.05% goes to the platform and 0.25% remains in the pool for distribution to LPs. Investors must complete KYC before they can participate in trading.
Although Kronos X Public as an L2 is itself permissionless, the TSV AMM trading pools are permissioned, and only wallets that have passed KYC can participate in trading.
Perpetuals.com first issued a notice on October 14 and has not yet begun operations. The company says trading could start as early as mid-November, but market data integration, compliance preparations, and smart contract security audits still need to be completed. As of now, Perpetuals.com has neither announced the list of tokenized stocks it plans to launch nor received any objections from issuers.
Concluding Remarks
At present, none of the three TSVs has completed a single real trade. The OKXICE official website still marks "coming," the earliest opening date for TSV LLC, October 24, has already passed, and Kephas has set its timeline for mid-November, and it must first complete market data integration, compliance preparations, and smart contract security audits.
And the resistance they face does not come only from issuers; greater uncertainty comes from the traditional market side. Nasdaq has separately stated that it will not allow its own stocks to be tokenized under this framework—TSV neither displays the best price in real time nor reports trades to the consolidated market data system.The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) has asked the SEC to clarify which blockchains are eligible and questioned whether stock tokenization should have obtained issuer consent in advance, rather than leaving it to issuers to raise objections themselves; Better Markets directly called for withdrawing this exemption and moving to formal rulemaking.
The exemption itself is a temporary five-year measure, and the SEC reserves the right to modify or shorten the period. Whether tokenized U.S. stocks can work is still unclear at present.
