Tokenized stocks expand access, but what do investors legally own? Tessera PE founder explains

Tokenized stock transfers have climbed to $29.5 billion as new products extend market access, but Tessera PE founder Chan Ahn says investors could receive anything from direct share ownership to a contractual claim carrying no shareholder rights. Summary Tokenized stocks can represent direct shares, custodial claims, or synthetic contracts with different legal rights. Company rules, securities laws, and underwriter lock-ups can limit transfers even when tokens move on-chain. Pre-IPO tokens lack the public prices and company disclosures needed for dependable secondary markets. Tokenizing private credit may extend access without making complex AI infrastructure risks easier to value. U.S. investors remain excluded from several tokenized stock products offered under Regulation S. Tessera PE founder Chan Ahn told crypto.news that similar marketing terms often conceal substantial differences in what token holders own, how they receive dividends, and whether they can vote on company matters. Ahn said he had not previously published an analysis of Securitize and based his comments about its model on publicly available information. He also separated Securitize’s reported NYSE listing, the ...