Q. Not all tokenized equity products are the same. What is the most important distinction to understand?

The central question is what the token actually represents. In the strongest model, the token is the share itself, meaning ownership, voting rights and dividends travel with it. In a synthetic wrapper, the investor owns a contractual claim against another entity, not the underlying share, introducing counterparty risk, tracking risk and the possibility that corporate actions do not pass through correctly.

Two tokens with the same ticker can represent very different instruments. The SEC’s January 2026 staff statement drew this distinction explicitly. For advisors evaluating these products, the structure is not a technical detail. It…