Broadcom and Verizon among firms opting out as ICE and OKX’s tokenized-stock trading pools add new objections

ICE and OKX’s joint effort to trade tokenized stocks via regulated pools is facing mounting pushback from major market participants, according to a new public notice referenced in a trade post. The notice, dated Oct. 15, indicates that more issuers or related parties are declining participation in the tokenized venue’s trading ecosystem, with the total count of companies refusing access reportedly climbing to nine.

The post highlights that the growing roster includes Broadcom, the technology group traded on the Nasdaq as AVGO, and Verizon, the telecom provider. Both companies are described as opting out of the tokenized trading pools, underscoring that large, widely held public companies are not treating tokenized-share venues as a standard part of their market infrastructure decisions.

The joint venture, which combines ICE’s exchange and market-structure experience with OKX’s digital-asset platform, is built around the idea of representing shares or stock-like instruments through tokenization, then allowing trading activity through a pool-based mechanism. In such systems, participation by issuers or other stakeholders is often tied to legal, compliance, and operational choices, including how ownership, transfers, and settlement rights are handled.

The Oct. 15 notice appears to function as a public ledger of participation decisions, listing the firms that have declined tokenized trading access to the pools. The trade post frames the development as a rapid climb in refusals, suggesting that the venue’s ability to secure wide-ranging participation may be constrained by issuer-by-issuer risk assessments.

For Broadcom, the reported opt-out matters because tokenized venues are increasingly positioned as an alternate trading channel that can affect liquidity narratives, technology partnerships, and how traditional market participants weigh integration with crypto-adjacent market rails. For Verizon, opting out suggests that even companies with established capital markets presence may be cautious about how tokenized stock arrangements align with their governance preferences, regulatory obligations, and investor protections.

Still, the public information cited in the post does not provide granular detail on why each company objected, nor does it describe what “opt out” means in practical terms for existing holders, for corporate actions, or for whether secondary-market trading restrictions change settlement or ownership outcomes. The notice is referenced as evidence of participation decisions, but the underlying rationale and any legal or operational conditions are not summarized in the material available here. That leaves open questions about whether the rejections reflect specific compliance concerns, reputational risk judgments, contractual terms, or evolving regulatory interpretations.