Daily News 19

Tag: Bullish

  • Bullish Targets Wall Street’s Tokenized Stock Ownership Gap

    Bullish Targets Wall Street’s Tokenized Stock Ownership Gap

    Key Highlights

    • Five major financial infrastructure firms formed the Issuer Sponsored Token Coalition on Sept. 24 to create tokens tied directly to official shareholder registers, not just price-tracking wrappers.
    • The SEC’s new five-year Innovation Exemption, effective Sept. 17, requires tokenized securities to convey the same legal rights as traditional shares—voting, dividends, and corporate actions—to qualify.
    • Equiniti, which Bullish agreed to acquire in May, brings nearly 3,000 issuer clients and 20 million shareholders, while Alpaca already backs over 94% of tokenized U.S. stocks with $1.5 billion in custody.

    Wall Street’s Tokenization Pivot: From Price Mirrors to Legal Ownership

    A consortium of financial infrastructure heavyweights—Bullish, Equiniti, Alpaca, Apex Fintech Solutions, and Drivewealth—launched the Issuer Sponsored Token Coalition on September 24 with a singular objective: to replace the crypto wrappers that merely track stock prices with onchain tokens that represent actual, legally recognized share ownership. The distinction is not semantic. As Drivewealth CEO Naureen Hassan put it 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.”

    Current tokenized-stock models typically operate by having a broker hold real shares in custody and mint tokens against them on a 1:1 basis. While these tokens can deliver economic exposure and, in some configurations, pass along dividends, the token holder often does not appear on the company’s official shareholder register. That absence leaves voting rights, proxy participation, and corporate actions such as stock splits in a legal gray zone. Issuer-sponsored tokenization takes a fundamentally different approach: the public company and its transfer agent are directly involved, anchoring the token to the canonical ownership record so that the full bundle of shareholder rights travels with the digital asset.

    Regulatory Catalyst and the Infrastructure Bridge

    The coalition’s formation coincides with a pivotal regulatory development. On September 17, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission opened a five-year Innovation Exemption permitting certain Tokenized Securities Venues to operate permissioned automated market makers and liquidity pools for tokenized National Market System stocks. The exemption carries a critical condition: qualifying tokens must provide the same rights and privileges as traditional shares. Tokens that merely mirror a stock’s price do not qualify, effectively setting a regulatory floor that the coalition is structured to meet.

    The membership roster reads like a map of Wall Street’s plumbing. Equiniti, which the crypto exchange Bullish agreed to acquire in May, serves nearly 3,000 issuer clients and more than 20 million shareholders. As a transfer agent, Equiniti maintains the official shareholder books, making it the essential bridge between an issuer’s records and whatever eventually lives onchain. On the brokerage side, Alpaca reported through mid-2026 that it accounted for roughly 94% of tokenized U.S. stocks and ETFs, backed by more than $1.5 billion in underlying shares held in custody. Apex Fintech Solutions contributes clearing and broker-dealer infrastructure, while Drivewealth supplies U.S. stock access to investing platforms worldwide.

    Technical Standards and the Path to Launch

    The group’s immediate agenda targets the hard problems of interoperability: technical standards, settlement workflows, custody models, and the integration of traditional market infrastructure with blockchain rails. Members will meet with public-company issuers at the New York Stock Exchange on October 27 to advance those discussions. Notably, no new tokenized stock launched alongside the coalition’s announcement—a deliberate signal that the industry is prioritizing legal and operational certainty over speed to market. Before Wall Street can put real shares onchain, it first has to ensure that a token claiming to represent ownership actually does.

    Why This Matters

    The Issuer Sponsored Token Coalition represents the most concerted effort yet to align blockchain-based capital markets with existing securities law and market structure. By anchoring tokens to the official shareholder register—maintained by transfer agents like Equiniti—the model seeks to eliminate the legal ambiguity that has plagued earlier tokenization attempts. The SEC’s Innovation Exemption provides a regulatory sandbox, but its requirement for full rights parity raises the bar: only tokens that convey voting, dividends, and corporate-action participation will qualify. If the coalition succeeds in standardizing settlement, custody, and interoperability across its members’ combined infrastructure, it could establish the blueprint for a new class of permissioned, institutionally native digital securities. The October 27 meeting at the NYSE will be an early test of issuer appetite and the practical feasibility of migrating shareholder records onto distributed ledgers without disrupting the existing equity ecosystem.

    Frequently Asked Questions

    What is the difference between current tokenized stocks and issuer-sponsored tokenization?

    Current models typically involve a broker holding shares in custody and minting tokens that track the stock’s price and may pass dividends, but the token holder is not listed on the company’s official shareholder register. Issuer-sponsored tokenization ties the token directly to that register—maintained by the transfer agent—so voting rights, proxies, stock splits, and other corporate actions travel with the token.

    Which firms formed the Issuer Sponsored Token Coalition and what do they bring?

    The coalition comprises Bullish, Equiniti, Alpaca, Apex Fintech Solutions, and Drivewealth. Equiniti (being acquired by Bullish) serves nearly 3,000 issuers and 20+ million shareholders as a transfer agent. Alpaca backs roughly 94% of tokenized U.S. stocks with over $1.5 billion in custody. Apex provides clearing and broker-dealer infrastructure, and Drivewealth powers U.S. stock access for global platforms.

    What does the SEC’s Innovation Exemption require for tokenized securities?

    The five-year exemption, effective September 17, allows qualified Tokenized Securities Venues to operate permissioned automated market makers and liquidity pools for tokenized National Market System stocks. The key condition: tokens must provide the same rights and privileges as traditional shares—including voting, dividends, and corporate actions. Price-tracking tokens that do not confer legal ownership do not qualify.

  • Bullish Provides USD.AI With $100 Million Facility for GPU Loans

    Bullish Provides USD.AI With $100 Million Facility for GPU Loans

    Bullish has provided USD.AI with a $100 million stablecoin debt facility to finance loans secured by graphics processing units (GPUs) used in artificial intelligence infrastructure.

    Announced Friday, the facility gives USD.AI additional capital to finance operators purchasing high-performance computing equipment. The deal expands Bullish’s exposure to tokenized real-world assets and AI infrastructure.

    USD.AI expands GPU-backed lending capacity

    Developed by Permian Labs, USD.AI connects stablecoin liquidity with companies seeking funding to purchase GPUs. Rather than evaluating a borrower’s entire business, the platform issues non-recourse loans secured by the computing hardware bought with the financing.

    Bullish Head of Tokenization Thomas Cowan said the company relied on USD.AI’s onchain records when assessing the facility. Bullish had already invested in the platform before agreeing to provide the debt financing.

    “Our commitment to USD.AI reflects a conviction we’ve believed since our first investment in the protocol: that credible, well-structured real-world assets belong onchain.”

    USD.AI will use the $100 million facility to originate loans for middle-market AI infrastructure operators. The financed hardware serves as collateral, while the loans do not create claims against the operators’ other corporate assets, according to the announcement.

    This structure separates the loans from borrowers’ main balance sheets, although repayment still depends on the income and resale value of the underlying computing equipment. GPUs can lose value as newer models reach the market, making loan terms, collateral checks and repayment schedules important to the financing process.

    USD.AI has already completed major transactions involving Nvidia hardware. In June, the protocol announced a $98.1 million loan backed by 2,304 Nvidia B300 GPUs. Investors separately provided full funding for a $34 million facility secured by 768 Nvidia B200 units.

    Together, the two disclosed loans involved 3,072 GPUs and more than $132 million in financing. The Bullish facility gives USD.AI another source of stablecoin liquidity as it extends lending to operators developing data centers and AI computing clusters.

    Permian Labs CEO David Choi said demand for computing equipment has created a distinct lending category.

    “Compute is becoming a credit market in its own right,” Choi said, adding that Bullish’s facility would allow USD.AI to finance more infrastructure and develop trading markets for compute-backed debt.

    USD.AI says its financing is settled onchain, giving capital providers exposure to loans backed by income-producing computing equipment. The company describes the funding as non-dilutive because operators do not have to give up an ownership stake when borrowing.

    Bullish plans sUSDai listing and secondary market

    Alongside the lending facility, Bullish plans to list sUSDai across several trading pairs on its institutional exchange. A dedicated market-making program will provide orders for the token once trading begins, according to the companies.

    USD.AI uses sUSDai as its yield-bearing token, giving holders exposure to returns generated by the protocol’s credit operations. A listing would allow holders to trade their positions instead of relying solely on the repayment period of the underlying loans.

    Bullish expects the program to improve secondary liquidity and price discovery for GPU-backed debt. The companies did not disclose the planned trading pairs, launch date or market-making budget in Friday’s announcement.

    Bullish and USD.AI are also expanding a research project focused on financing capital spending in the AI sector. The work will combine Bullish’s experience operating institutional markets with USD.AI’s lending model, according to the announcement.

    Tokenized exposure to computing hardware has emerged elsewhere in the crypto market. In August 2025, Injective introduced an Nvidia GPU derivatives market that gave traders exposure to rental prices for Nvidia H100 processors.

    Aethir and Injective launched a tokenized GPU marketplace in December 2024, using blockchain-based products to provide access to computing capacity. Unlike those trading and rental products, USD.AI’s model centers on secured loans issued to infrastructure operators.

    Bullish deepens existing USD.AI relationship

    The $100 million facility follows Bullish Capital’s $4 million investment in USD.AI in September 2025. Cowan said onchain transparency allowed Bullish to review the protocol using the institutional underwriting standards applied elsewhere across its business.

    Bullish operates spot and derivatives markets for professional investors and supplies the liquidity supporting the new facility.

    In Europe, Bullish operates under the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets framework as an authorized crypto asset service provider offering spot trading and custody. Its U.S. presence expanded after the company obtained a New York BitLicense in September 2025.

    The license allows Bullish to serve eligible customers in New York and came about one month after the company’s public listing. The announcement did not specify whether sUSDai would be offered to U.S. customers or describe any access restrictions.

    Bullish shares recover after post-IPO decline

    For U.S. investors, the transaction adds AI infrastructure lending to the businesses linked to NYSE-listed Bullish shares, which trade under the ticker BLSH. The financial impact will depend on the facility’s terms, loan performance and contribution to Bullish’s results, none of which the companies disclosed.

    Bullish debuted on the New York Stock Exchange in August 2025 after pricing its shares at $37. The offering raised about $1.03 billion, while the stock opened at $90 during its first trading session.

    Earlier coverage of the public offering reported that Bullish entered the market at a valuation of about $5.4 billion after pricing above its original range. BlackRock-managed funds and accounts linked to ARK Investment Management had indicated interest in purchasing up to $200 million of stock.

    Despite its recent recovery, BLSH remains more than 60% below its $90 opening price. The shares traded around $33 on Friday after gaining approximately 45% during the preceding month.

    Other U.S.-traded crypto companies also advanced over the same period. Bitcoin treasury company Strive gained about 88%, Bitcoin miner Canaan rose roughly 55%, and USDC issuer Circle added close to 40%.