Why McDonalds, Microsoft and Google saying no to tokenized stocks isn't a dealbreaker
Major corporations including Microsoft, Google, and Goldman Sachs have opted out of having their shares traded as tokenized assets on the OKX and ICE platform. Industry experts suggest this is a cautious legal response to a new SEC framework rather than a definitive rejection of tokenization technology.
Why it matters
The mass opt-out reflects the tension between traditional financial institutions and emerging blockchain-based trading structures, highlighting regulatory uncertainty in the crypto space.
The SEC's new framework for tokenized stock trading looked, at first glance, roughly a month ago, like a fast track to putting U.S. equities on crypto rails.
The first real-world test hasn't looked particularly encouraging so far.
A growing group of public companies has objected to having their shares traded on the tokenized-securities venue being built by OKX and Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the owner of the New York Stock Exchange.
This week’s of objections included some of the biggest names yet: Microsoft (MSFT), Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL), Goldman Sachs (GS) McDonalds (MCD) and three others on Monday, then Wells Fargo (WFC) and Cisco (CSCO) and four more firms on Friday rejected having tokenized versions of their shares traded on OKXICE, bringing the disclosed total now to 22 objecting issuers.
Seeing some of the world's largest companies say no may not exactly be the start that tokenization advocates had hoped for.
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