Stock Tokens: Who Issues Them and Who Backs Them

Behind a stock token there are almost always four parties: an issuer that creates the instrument, a broker that sells it to you, a custodian that holds the real shares, and a blockchain on which your position is recorded. Once you know those four names, you know who your claim is actually against. Today they sit in the small print of the product documents, scattered across several files. The US Securities and Exchange Commission wants to change that, and since September 4, 2026 it has a hard deadline on the calendar: comments on its rule proposal can be filed until November 3, 2026.

This article explains who is liable for what in a stock token, how you can take the chain apart yourself in a few minutes, and what would change in the available data if the proposal is adopted as written. It is deliberately neither a buy recommendation nor a price analysis.

Who Stands Behind a Stock Token: The Short Answer

A stock token is almost never issued by the company whose name it carries. The issuer is a company set up specifically for that purpose, often in a different country from the broker you buy through. That company promises you economic exposure to a share price. It does not transfer ownership of the share to you.