This milestone highlights tokenization's role as an enhanced option to public markets, enabling issuers to bring equities onchain, seamless servicing, and full alignment with existing regulatory frameworks.

Issuers can now include Issuer-Sponsored Tokens (ISTs) as part of their issued capital alongside existing shares, including those held in the Direct Registration System (DRS). The change gives participating issuers greater flexibility in how shares are issued, while allowing shareholders to choose how they prefer to hold their securities.

"By partnering with the largest transfer agent in the world, we're helping to create the optimum pathway to tokenization for listed U.S. companies," said Carlos Domingo, Co-Founder and CEO of Securitize. "ISTs do not rely on derivative tokens that sit on top of underlying shares, nor do they alter any underlying equity. Our work with Computershare connects the technology needed to support tokenization of assets to their deep issuer services expertise, providing U.S. issuers with the ability to create direct equity ownership in token form."

Computershare will act as the transfer agent for its clients' ISTs, including processing corporate actions for IST holdings alongside other directly registered holdings. The solution ensures issuers remain at the center of their capital structure, maintaining control while safeguarding direct issuer-to-shareholder interactions.

"Our focus has been to empower U.S.-listed companies to issue tokenized equity while retaining control with confidence over their issued capital," said Ann Bowering, CEO, Issuer Services, Computershare North America.

"We designed ISTs to operate within the existing regulatory environment, maintaining the independence and oversight that issuers and regulators expect from a transfer agent and allowing for effective interoperability with market infrastructure."

"As part of this development, we are very pleased to be partnering with Securitize, a leader in tokenizing real-world assets."

ISTs enable shareholders to consolidate digital holdings in a wallet, while maintaining direct communication and corporate action flows with issuers. Interoperability with existing markets is expected to continue to evolve as market infrastructure develops.