Bullish Takes Aim at Wall Street’s Tokenized Stock Ownership Gap

Wall Street Wants the Real Thing Onchain

Investors can already buy tokens carrying the names and price movements of U.S. stocks. There’s a caveat, owning one doesn’t necessarily make you a shareholder. Bullish, Equiniti, Alpaca, Apex Fintech Solutions and Drivewealth formed the Issuer Sponsored Token Coalition on Sept. 24 to change that.

Instead of another crypto wrapper tracking a stock’s price, the group wants tokens tied to a company’s official shareholder register, meaning the onchain record would represent actual ownership rights rather than simply mirror what a share is worth.

Drivewealth CEO Naureen Hassan put the distinction plainly: “Much of what’s marketed today as ‘tokenized equity’ isn’t equity at all. Investors think they own the share, and they don’t.” That difference gets right to the heart of Wall Street’s tokenization experiment. Putting a stock price onchain is one thing. Putting the stock itself there, complete with the legal machinery attached to ownership, is another.

From the Shareholder Book to the Blockchain

Traditional tokenized-stock models often start with a broker holding real shares in custody and minting tokens against them 1:1. The token can provide economic exposure to the stock and, depending on the setup, pass along dividends. But the token holder isn’t necessarily listed on the company’s official shareholder register. That can leave voting rights, proxies and corporate actions sitting in a gray area.