The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has opened a five-year regulatory pathway for certain venues to offer blockchain-based trading in tokenized U.S. stocks, but the first proposed listings are already running into resistance from some of the country’s largest public companies.
Under Release No. 34-106402, issued on Sept. 17, qualifying tokenized securities venues, or TSVs, can receive limited relief from rules that would otherwise treat them as securities exchanges. Liquidity providers serving those venues, known in the order as covered firms, can also qualify for an exemption from dealer registration requirements. The framework runs through Sept. 17, 2031, though the SEC can amend the order or end it earlier.
Three entities have filed notices seeking to operate under the arrangement: TSV LLC, OKXICE and Kephas Corp., which plans to operate under the Perpetuals.com brand. None had completed a first trade as of Oct. 24, according to their notices and public websites.
The first test will be whether these platforms can assemble enough eligible stock listings and liquidity while complying with a model that gives issuers a formal opportunity to object.
Issuer objections narrow OKXICE’s initial stock list
OKXICE, a 50-50 venture between cryptocurrency platform OKX and Intercontinental Exchange, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, submitted its notice to the SEC on Oct. 4. The Texas-registered venture published a proposed list of 63 tokenized ticker symbols linked to 62 U.S.-listed companies.
Its planned market would operate on X Layer, OKX’s Ethereum Layer 2 network, and initially pair tokenized shares with the stablecoins USDC, USDG and USDT. A Layer 2 is a network designed to process transactions with lower costs or faster execution while connecting back to Ethereum.
The SEC order allows third parties to initiate tokenization of an issuer’s shares, but it requires the venue to notify the company. The issuer then has 30 calendar days after receiving notice to object. A valid objection prevents the TSV from listing the tokenized stock and must be disclosed publicly.
By Oct. 24, 22 of the 62 companies in OKXICE’s proposal had objected. The companies listed in public materials included CoreWeave, Broadcom, Cerebras, Microsoft, Alphabet, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Arm and Intuit.
That response means an early-november launch, the earliest possible date following the 30-day process, could feature a substantially smaller selection than the venue’s original 63-ticker proposal. OKXICE’s website remained marked “coming” as of the date described.
The venture’s governance also gives the project an unusually close connection to established U.S. market infrastructure. Andrew Cuomo, the former New York governor and a member of OKX’s global board, is among its co-chairs.
Permissioned pools rather than open defi markets
The exemption order permits a qualifying venue to operate automated market maker, or AMM, pools on a public blockchain for permitted participants trading tokenized National Market System stocks. An AMM uses smart contracts and liquidity pools rather than a conventional order book to set prices and execute trades.
That structure does not create a fully open retail defi market. Each of the proposed platforms would require customer identification checks, and each intends to limit participation in its pools to approved users or wallets.
OKXICE’s filing says individual customers would need to provide their name, date of birth, residential address, nationality and Social Security number. Institutional participants would need to submit corporate registration and organizational records as well as identity information for executives, principals and beneficial owners.
The venture plans two layers of fees. Customers would pay a per-trade service charge in stablecoins, deducted before execution, though the rate has not been disclosed. Each pool would also levy a fee distributed to liquidity providers according to their share of contributed capital. Participants would additionally pay X Layer network gas fees.
The design places tokenized-stock liquidity providers in a role closer to market makers than passive holders of a typical cryptocurrency pool. Their returns would depend on trading volume, pool fees, stablecoin and share-token balances, and the price movements of the underlying equities.
TSV LLC targets Canton Network issuance
TSV LLC filed its notice on Sept. 23 and plans to build on Canton Network, a blockchain network focused on financial-market applications. The Puerto Rico-registered company is owned equally by Obsidian Systems co-founders Ali Abrar and Ryan Trinkle. Trinkle also sits on the Canton Foundation board.
The platform intends to use Tradecraft, Obsidian’s AMM software, which the company describes as having a design broadly similar to Uniswap v3. Its pools would pair USDC with SBC, a token issued by Brale on Canton Network.
For standard pools, TSV LLC has proposed a 0.30% swap fee. Liquidity providers would receive 0.20%, while 0.10% would go to the venue. Tradecraft is also expected to supply software development, maintenance, monitoring, technical support and elements of the venue’s operational and trade-surveillance systems.
Unlike OKXICE, TSV LLC said it intends to rely on issuer authorization through an issuer’s transfer agent. That approach would avoid the SEC order’s notice-and-objection mechanism, though it also requires direct cooperation from issuers and their securities-administration infrastructure.
TSV LLC had said it would begin operations no earlier than the 31st calendar day after its notice, placing its earliest date at Oct. 24. It had not released a list of proposed tokenized stocks or reported issuer refusals, and its expected rollout was described as early november.
Perpetuals.com plans a mid-november start
Kephas Corp., registered in Delaware, filed its notice on Oct. 14. It is an indirect wholly owned U.S. subsidiary of Tokyo-headquartered Perpetuals.com, a Nasdaq-listed company trading under the ticker PDC.
Perpetuals.com was created in January 2026 through the merger of Perpetuals.com Group and EarlyWorks. Its co-founder and co-chief executive, Patrick Gruhn, previously led FTX Europe and co-founded Swiss firm Digital Assets AG in 2021. Digital Assets AG worked with CM-Equity on stock-linked tokens that were distributed through platforms including Binance and FTX before FTX Group acquired the business.
Kephas plans to use Kronos X Public, Perpetuals.com’s in-house Ethereum Layer 2 network. Tokenized stocks would initially trade against USDC, with a 0.30% swap fee: 0.05% for the platform and 0.25% retained in the pool for liquidity providers.
Kronos X Public is described as permissionless at the network level, but Kephas’ trading pools would be permissioned. Only wallets that have completed know-your-customer checks could participate.
The company has projected a potential mid-november start, subject to market-data connections, compliance work and smart-contract security reviews. Its timeline illustrates the practical limits of the SEC relief: regulatory permission creates a route to operate, while the venues must still build market infrastructure, attract approved counterparties and secure viable share-token supply.
Curious how this shift blurs TradFi and DeFi? Discover the basics in what are tokenized equities today.
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