- Bullish and Equiniti formed the Issuer Sponsored Token Coalition, joined by early participants Alpaca, Apex Fintech Solutions, and DriveWealth
- The coalition aims to build technical standards and operational frameworks for tokenized securities that preserve issuer-shareholder relationships and existing investor protections
- Its stated goal is interoperability between tokenized securities and both traditional capital markets infrastructure and blockchain networks
Digital asset exchange Bullish (NYSE: BLSH) and share-registry firm Equiniti formed the Issuer Sponsored Token Coalition, joined at launch by Alpaca, Apex Fintech Solutions, and DriveWealth, according to their joint announcement. The coalition’s stated purpose is developing common technical standards, market infrastructure, and operational frameworks specifically for tokenized securities that are sponsored by the underlying issuer, rather than created by a third party wrapping shares into a token without the issuing company’s involvement.
A central design goal is preserving the legal relationship between an issuer and its shareholders even once shares exist in tokenized form, along with the investor protections that come with being a registered shareholder of record. The coalition frames this as a response to a market where various forms of “tokenized equity” have emerged without a shared standard for how those tokens connect back to the actual shareholder register and the rights that come with formal share ownership.
Interoperability is the other pillar of the effort: the coalition wants issuer-sponsored tokenized securities to work across both traditional capital markets infrastructure and blockchain networks, rather than existing as an isolated product that trades only in crypto-native venues disconnected from a company’s actual shareholder records and corporate actions like dividends, voting, or stock splits.
“Tokenization will turn static, opaque assets into active, transparent digital shares,” said Tom Farley, CEO of Bullish. Arush Sehgal, Head of Digital Assets at Alpaca, said “getting it right means preserving shareholder rights and ensuring onchain markets remain connected to the markets they’re built on.” Travis McGhee, Global Head of Digital Markets at Apex Fintech Solutions, added that “tokenized securities will only scale if they preserve the relationships and protections that market participants rely on today,” while DriveWealth CEO Naureen Hassan was more pointed about the current state of the market, saying “much of what’s marketed today as ‘tokenized equity’ isn’t equity at all.”
The coalition’s formation reflects a broader concern among established market infrastructure firms that tokenized-stock products proliferating across crypto exchanges risk confusing investors about what they actually own, since many existing tokenized-stock offerings are synthetic instruments that track a stock’s price without conferring actual shareholder rights. By building standards specifically around issuer-sponsored tokens, the coalition is positioning its approach as the more legally robust alternative to those synthetic products.
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