The market this morning

Nine companies object as tokenized trading of their shares reaches a platform called OKXICE

By Crypto Info News

Good morning. Nine companies, including CoreWeave, Broadcom and Verizon, objected to the tokenized trading of their shares on a platform called OKXICE, The Block reported on 17 October. The Block said Applied Optoelectronics told the Wall Street Journal it objected because it was unsure how tokenization would affect its stock price, liquidity and volatility.

The objections landed as larger institutions moved the other way. CoinDesk reported that Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley see tokenization as a growth play rather than a threat, eyeing new trading opportunities, faster payments and a role for advisers. In a separate piece, CoinDesk said the research firm Citrini sees a tokenization boom, while framing the harder question as which companies, networks and protocols capture the revenue. CoinDesk also reported that Polygon views its acquisition of Coinme as an entry into a payments sector dominated by Visa and Stripe, with CEO Marc Boiron saying the deal will help Polygon control customer relationships and capture revenue that previously went to payment intermediaries.

Markets themselves were subdued. Bitcoin closed at $81,408.34521320867, down 0.14144705129468607 percent over 24 hours. Ether closed at $2,400.3079201066294, down 0.836661248401935 percent.

On policy and stablecoins, Cointelegraph reported that ECB president Lagarde called the euro-area economy resilient and the digital euro imminent, quoting her as saying it will "further stimulate innovation and competition in retail payments." Cointelegraph also reported that Circle's Allaire said the stablecoin issuer is looking to enter 40 developing markets. CoinDesk, citing a BIS working paper, reported that a one basis point rise in U.S. bank deposit rates predicted slower stablecoin growth, cutting ten-week growth from 15 percent to 12 percent.

In enforcement, The Block reported that Turkey confirmed the arrest of Hex founder Richard Heart, saying police seized $7.15 million in cash, six cold wallets, seven firearms and 1,400 rounds of ammunition in searches of 15 addresses.

On security, Decrypt reported that crypto firms launched a nine-member Quantum Alliance, modeled on the Internet Engineering Task Force, to set open standards for testing quantum-resistance claims. CoinDesk reported that Google says its Willow chip can prepare certain quantum states with about 40 times fewer errors.

Elsewhere, Decrypt reported that the crypto super PAC Fairshake affiliate Defend American Jobs disclosed roughly $7 million more in ads against Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown, pushing its total past $46 million, days after the PAC expanded its map to 32 House races. The Block reported that Strive's bitcoin buying earned a 27 percent price-target hike from TD Cowen. Cointelegraph reported that Fidelity found Solana has had no reported mainnet outages in two years while flagging concentrations in stake, hosting and client software to monitor, and that Bitget will discontinue services for some users in a one-off exercise, saying funds are safe and the exchange will keep operating.

What to watch: whether more named companies contest tokenization of their shares, how banks' plans progress, and what the Quantum Alliance's standards produce.