An ambitious joint venture to bring U.S. stocks onto the blockchain appears to be on life support. The venture, cochaired by former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and led by crypto firm OKX and the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, announced plans last month to offer round-the-clock trading of tokenized shares of 62 public companies. But as of Thursday, 54 of those companies had objected to having their shares traded on the platform.
Aerospace manufacturer Boeing and business software maker ServiceNow joined the objection list on Wednesday, a day after Apple, Home Depot and GE Vernova filed objections. Earlier objectors include some of corporate America’s biggest names, from Microsoft, Alphabet, and Nvidia to JPMorgan Chase and Walmart.
Home Depot declined to comment. Boeing, ServiceNow, Apple, and GE Vernova did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment.
Companies outside OKXICE’s original proposed lineup have also filed objections, including Wells Fargo, Nebius Group, Arm Holdings, Cerebras Systems, and Cigna Group.
The expanded objection list comes a month after Cuomo announced the tokenized stock trading venue in a social media post. The venture was born out of a temporary exemption granted by the Securities and Exchange Commission in September that allows qualifying platforms to offer trading in tokenized stocks without registering as national securities exchanges, provided they meet certain conditions.
The eight companies in OKXICE’s original proposed lineup without a disclosed objection so far predominantly have ties to crypto or blockchain. They include USDC issuer Circle Internet Group, crypto exchange Coinbase, trading platform Robinhood, digital asset custodian BitGo, bitcoin treasury company Strategy and tokenization company Securitize. Software company Palantir and server maker Super Micro Computer round out the list.
OKXICE declined to say whether the growing number of objections would affect its planned launch.
The SEC approved the exemption two days after the Clarity Act, a bill to establish a regulatory framework for digital assets, stalled in the Senate. Under the exemption, platforms like OKXICE do not need a company’s permission to offer trading in tokenized versions of its shares. Instead, they must notify the company and give it 30 days from receipt to object and block the listing, as Fortune reported earlier.
Applied Optoelectronics, a networking equipment maker among the companies to file objections, previously told Fortune that the new framework’s potential impact on its stock’s pricing, liquidity and volatility remained unclear. The company also expressed concern that investors might mistakenly believe it sponsored or endorsed the offering.
“At this stage, we don’t see a clear benefit to AOI or our shareholders that justifies these uncertainties,” a spokesperson said.