Apple or Nvidia shares as tokens, traded around the clock: three firms want to do it in the US with SEC approval

On 17 September 2026 the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) introduced the so-called Innovation Exemption. It is a five-year route, until 17 September 2031, for platforms that want to trade shares in US companies as tokens on a blockchain without immediately meeting all the requirements imposed on ordinary exchanges.

According to reports on 22 October 2026, three firms have applied: TSV LLC (on the Canton blockchain), OKXICE and Perpetuals.com. OKXICE is a company owned 50/50 by the crypto exchange OKX and ICE, owner of the New York Stock Exchange.

What exactly they plan

• OKXICE listed 63 companies in its filing, including Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft and Tesla. Trading is to run 24 hours a day, paired with the stablecoins USDC, USDG and USDT.
• Access is to be restricted and controlled – this will not be a platform open to everyone.
• None of the platforms is live yet and there is no launch date.

The SEC’s conditions

• A company has 30 days to object to the tokenisation of its shares. The chipmaker Cerebras has already objected.
• A token must carry the same rights as an ordinary share, including dividends and voting rights.
• The limit is the 75 most liquid companies and 0.25% of a share’s average daily turnover.

What it means for you

• Retail investors in the UK and Poland: these platforms are to operate in the US, with restricted access. You cannot “buy an Apple token” under this programme today.
• Beware of scammers: headlines like this are perfect bait. If someone online is now offering you “tokenised shares guaranteed by the SEC”, it is almost certainly a scam.
• Businesses: tokenisation is leaving its niche. Major exchanges take it seriously, which opens the way to token-based settlement and licensing in other sectors too.

Our assessment

Will it happen? Probably, but slowly and on a narrow scale: the SEC is only granting a trial exemption, which it can change or withdraw. The most important signal is the presence of ICE, owner of the NYSE. Traditional finance is no longer treating blockchain as a curiosity. For ordinary investors in Europe, the real effects are more likely to come in a few years than in a few months.

What to do

• Do not deposit money on platforms that cite “SEC approval” – check the firm on the FCA register (UK) or with the KNF (Poland).
• If you run a business, watch the development of tokenisation – it may become a new way of settling with business partners.

Disclosure: the publisher of THE BUSINESS TIME, ARGONAUTS MEDIA GROUP LIMITED, is developing its own tokenisation project, THE-AMG SAGA TOKEN (ASDH), designed for businesses and institutions.

Sources: Genfinity (6 October 2026), The Currency Analytics, SpendNode (22 October 2026).