Key Takeaways
Securitize ran a WSJ ad defending SEC-regulated stock tokenization to counter recent industry backlash.The campaign claims proper tokenization safely offers liquidity and connects stocks to new investor pools.Despite the defense, 38 major companies like Microsoft and Walmart have opted out of a new tokenized venue.
Securitize Highlights Benefits of Tokenization In WSJ Ad
Wall Street’s crypto giants are stepping up to fight the backlash that tokenization is currently facing.
Securitize, a Blackrock-backed public company that helps traditional companies put their products onchain, published a full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) to promote the benefits that tokenization brings to public companies when done right.
The ad, which was published in WSJ’s printed edition on Wednesday, stresses that bringing shares onchain should be done the “right way,” highlighting that tokenized shares should be backed 1:1 by real shares with voting and dividend rights, and offered through venues regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which only support lawful transfers between identified investors.
The campaign shows the benefits of tokenizing shares, including expanding traditional stocks to a new pool of investors, increased trading hours, additional liquidity, and a more direct engagement with shareholders.
“We fight propaganda with facts so we also took a one-page ad on the WSJ explaining to issuers why they should embrace tokenization, and encouraging them to reach out to discuss the advantages of #TokenizationDoneRight,” wrote Securitize CEO and co-founder Carlos Domingo on X.
Securitize’s advertisement comes to counter a rival campaign that published an anti-tokenization ad in the same newspaper on Saturday, Oct 24. That ad called on CEOs of public companies to object to the tokenization of their shares on tokenized securities venues (TSVs), exchanges that follow the SEC’s innovation exemption to allow the decentralized trading of these products.
Funded by the Common Sense Leadership Fund, a 501(c)(4) non-profit civic organization founded in 2021, the ad stressed that CEO’s might be held liable if anything went wrong in these tokenization initiatives.
Domingo himself called this notion misleading, saying that the ad brought forward concerns that did not apply to “proper tokenization done in the U.S. under SEC regulations and traded on regulated venues.”
Even so, many companies have objected to having their shares listed by OKXICE, a joint venture between cryptocurrency exchange OKX and New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) owner Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) that will become one of these TSVs. So far, 38 of the 63 targeted companies have opted out, including major players like Microsoft, Google parent Alphabet, Intel, Oracle, IBM, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, McDonald’s, Walmart, and pharma giant Eli Lilly.
