Why would a public company tokenize its own shares instead of letting someone else wrap them?
Matt Levine’s version in his
@opinion article is the simple one: a share is an entry on the company’s ledger, maintained by its transfer agent, & the company is supposed to know who owns it. But why care?
Digging deeper, issuer sponsored tokenization puts that ledger onchain; the token is the register entry, not a 3rd-party claim that borrows the ticker. The issuer gets a live cap table, controls issuance/restrictions, & can program votes, dividends, and holder rewards so the economics stay in house. A wrapper leaves the company blind and unpaid. That is the point: keep the shareholder relationship, don’t rent it out.