OKXICE, the 50/50 joint venture between Intercontinental Exchange and OKX affiliate OKC USA, has formally notified regulators of plans to operate a 24/7 market for tokenized U.S. stocks. Its October 4 Public Notice of OKXICE TSV identifies 63 tokenized National Market System stocks intended for secondary trading through permissioned blockchain liquidity pools, including Nvidia, Apple, Tesla, Microsoft, Amazon, Palantir, Coinbase and other U.S. equities.
The filing uses the SEC’s new Innovation Exemption, introduced September 17 to permit qualifying Tokenized Securities Venues to operate under temporary conditional relief from the Exchange Act definition of an exchange. OKXICE is notifying the SEC that it intends to rely on that exemption, rather than applying to become a conventional national securities exchange for the covered activity. The framework expires five years after publication unless replaced or modified.
Uniswap v4 Pools Replace the Traditional Order Book
OKXICE plans to run the venue on XLayer using permissioned Uniswap v4 liquidity pools rather than a centralized order book. Approved users must complete KYC or KYB, AML and sanctions screening and connect a self-custodial wallet, which then receives a non-transferable authorization token. Only permissioned wallets can trade or provide liquidity, despite the underlying smart contracts operating on a public blockchain.
Transactions will pair tokenized stocks with USDC, USDG or USDT and settle atomically on XLayer. Both sides of a successful secondary-market trade transfer within the same blockchain transaction, with no central counterparty, clearing agency or netting process. That provides onchain atomic settlement for OKXICE trades, but it should not be confused with instantaneous creation or redemption of the underlying securities, which still requires the tokenizer and its registered broker-dealer to acquire, custody, sell or deliver conventional shares.
The venue is designed to operate continuously, including when traditional stock exchanges are closed. Its AMM prices are determined by pool reserves rather than directly by underlying exchange quotes, meaning token prices can diverge from the corresponding stock outside normal market hours or when liquidity is thin. 24/7 availability therefore expands trading hours without guaranteeing continuous price parity or market depth.
That structure pushes U.S. tokenized equities further toward the DeFi-style market architecture already appearing elsewhere. Tokenized stocks have generated billions of dollars in decentralized exchange volume, while Coinbase-issued stocks on Base already support self-custody and DeFi integrations. OKXICE differs by attempting to bring a comparable model directly inside a U.S. SEC exemption.
Tokens Must Preserve Actual Shareholder Rights
The Innovation Exemption excludes synthetic stock exposure. For third-party tokenization, OKXICE says the underlying shares will be held 1:1 through an SEC-registered, FINRA-member broker-dealer, with each token representing a security entitlement to one corresponding share. Token holders must receive the same relevant economic and governance rights as holders of the equivalent conventional stock, including dividends, voting rights and residual liquidation interests.
This requirement is one of the core differences between the SEC framework and many earlier equity-linked crypto products. Securitize has highlighted the same shareholder-rights requirement in the Innovation Exemption, while the broader five-year SEC pathway for tokenized stocks imposes symbol limits, volume caps and issuer protections alongside those rights.
Issuers also receive an explicit veto mechanism. Trading cannot begin until at least 30 calendar days after an issuer receives notice, and the company can object during that period when an unaffiliated third party is tokenizing its shares. Cerebras Systems had already exercised that right by the date of OKXICE’s notice, showing that the initial securities list may change before launch.
Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, now an OKX board director and OKXICE co-chair, has publicly backed the initiative, while ICE executive Trabue Bland serves on the traditional-markets side of the venture. The more consequential milestone, however, is operational rather than promotional: OKXICE still must satisfy the exemption’s notice periods, access controls, technology safeguards and issuer-objection requirements before the proposed markets can begin trading.
Emma Lawson writes about the pressure points where crypto meets the outside world: regulation, exchanges, macro policy, tokenized assets and geopolitical risk. From the US, she follows the decisions and events that can change how capital moves, how platforms operate and how digital assets are treated by institutions.
Her work is direct and evidence-led. Emma is less interested in legal theatre than in practical consequences: what changed, who is affected, which risks are real and where the market may be overreacting. She brings a steady voice to complex stories, especially when regulation, infrastructure and global markets start pulling in the same direction.