Bullish, the NYSE-listed platform providing regulated market infrastructure and information services, announced on November 3 that it has named Solana, Aptos and Ethereum as the initial network partners for its equity tokenization services. The company said issuers will be able to choose among these networks for their issuer-sponsored tokenized shares.
61 Million Tokenized Shares Transferred on Solana
The announcement follows an event Bullish and Equiniti hosted at the New York Stock Exchange on October 27. At the event, Bullish CEO Tom Farley and Equiniti CEO Dan Kramer demonstrated the transfer of 61 million tokenized reserved shares. The transfer ran on Solana, was administered by Equiniti, and completed in seconds.
Farley also demonstrated a method for issuers to reward tokenized shareholders by sending a digital Consensus pass directly to a shareholder’s wallet. Bullish intends to offer the same capabilities on Aptos, Ethereum and other networks over time.
In May, Bullish agreed to acquire Equiniti. It also became the first NYSE-listed firm to tokenize its full equity cap table on Solana, and tokenized BLSH shares later began trading on Bullish Exchange. The 61 million reserved shares tokenized this week have been earmarked to help close the acquisition. The final amount will follow the merger agreement, and remaining regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions still apply.
Multi-Network Support for Issuers
Bullish describes multi-network support as the next step in bringing public equities onchain. Investors and liquidity are spread across several public blockchains, so tokenization infrastructure for capital markets needs to work across them. By supporting Aptos and Ethereum alongside Solana, Bullish aims to let issuers reach investors on networks they already use without requiring investors to move to a single chain. The official record of ownership remains with the transfer agent.
According to Bullish, tokenized shares can enable capabilities the current post-trade system was not designed to support, including round-the-clock markets, near-instant settlement, programmable corporate actions, real-time visibility into share ownership and new ways to reward shareholders.
Thomas Cowan, Head of Tokenization at Bullish, said the company wants issuer tokens “available on key blockchains for our investors.” He added that “Solana gave us the foundation to tokenize our own shares” and that the NYSE event “showed issuers what that looks like in practice.” Cowan also said, “Supporting Aptos and Ethereum is the logical next step to meet the market and continue strong industry growth.”
Separately, Bullish and EQ convened the Issuer Sponsored Token Coalition, a non-exclusive industry working group.
