The objections offer an early look at how companies are navigating a new market structure that could let U.S. investors trade stocks around the clock on blockchain plumbing. The SEC’s five-year “Innovation Exemption,” rolled out roughly a month ago, gives qualifying venues room to test trading through automated market makers and liquidity pools, while giving issuers a say in whether their shares participate.

Cuomo described that approach as a deliberately limited experiment, with caps on the number of stocks and trading volumes.

“There are limits on how many companies can participate and on the volume that can be traded, so by definition, it really is a sandbox — a model demonstration,” he said.

A learning curve for issuers

Carlos Domingo, CEO of tokenization firm Securitize, also said issuers’ concerns warrant attention.

“We think it’s entirely reasonable for issuers to ask questions about how these new markets work, particularly around pricing, investor protections and shareholder rights,” Domingo said.

“There’s an important education process underway, and issuers should understand that they have different options for participating in tokenization, including issuer-sponsored approaches.”

Securitize earlier this month announced an offering of 12 tokenized stocks for U.S. investors, with plans to make them available on OKXICE’s venue. Microsoft and Alphabet are among those stocks. Their objections to OKXICE do not, by themselves, establish opposition to Securitize’s separate offering.