Issuer-Backed Tokenized Stocks Take Center Stage in Historic Consortium
A consortium of financial infrastructure platforms has entered into an alliance to standardize issuer-backed tokenized stocks. The Issuer Sponsored Token Coalition, formed by Bullish, Alpaca, and Apex Fintech Solutions on September 24, aims to link the on-chain representation of assets directly to official shareholder registries.
The initiative follows a regulatory exemption granted by the SEC on September 17, allowing trading of publicly listed stocks within bounded blockchain environments. The coalition's technical working group will address the creation of custody, settlement, and transfer frameworks connecting traditional stock exchange registries with distributed ledger networks.
Equiniti and DriveWealth have also joined the initiative, which champions a model where digital units maintain a direct link to shareholder ledgers, protecting corporate rights such as dividend distribution and voting rights. According to the coalition's statement, this mechanism will shape the legal integration between traditional financial markets and decentralized systems.