Payward, the company behind the Kraken exchange, has struck a deal with financial technology firm Broadridge to give holders of its tokenized stocks — called xStocks — the ability to vote on corporate matters. The move is designed to make these digital assets more palatable to institutional investors by aligning them with the fiduciary governance standards that govern traditional securities.
What the partnership brings
Under the arrangement, Broadridge will provide the infrastructure to process and record votes for xStocks holders. That means someone who owns a tokenized share of a company will be able to participate in shareholder votes just as if they held the underlying stock through a conventional broker. The service is expected to launch later this year.
Payward has been pushing into tokenized equities as a way to bridge the gap between traditional finance and crypto. By adding voting rights, the company is trying to address a key complaint from institutional investors: that tokenized assets often lack the governance features they're required to uphold under their own fiduciary duties.
Institutional money managers are bound by rules that demand they exercise shareholder rights, including voting. Without that ability, many have been reluctant to hold tokenized stocks, even if they see the operational benefits of blockchain-based settlement and 24/7 trading. This partnership could remove that barrier.
Broadridge already handles proxy voting for a large chunk of Wall Street. Its involvement gives the project a layer of credibility and technical heft that a standalone crypto firm might struggle to provide. For Payward, it's a chance to show that tokenized stocks can meet the same standards as their traditional counterparts.
The deal doesn't change the underlying legal status of xStocks — they're still not registered securities in most jurisdictions. But it does add a practical feature that could make them more attractive to the kind of large investors who have so far stayed on the sidelines.
Whether that will be enough to spark a wave of institutional adoption remains an open question. The regulatory landscape for tokenized equities is still being shaped, and no amount of voting infrastructure can replace a clear legal framework. For now, Payward and Broadridge are betting that better governance tools are a step in the right direction.
