# What the issuers say a stock token legally is

> Four issuers, four descriptions, all published by them. This page puts the four side by side and stops there, because characterising somebody's instrument for them is not our job.

- **Kind:** Explainer
- **Checked:** 2026-07-29
- **Author:** Stocks On Chain

## Sources

- Robinhood: stock token documentation: https://docs.robinhood.com/chain/stock-tokens/
- Ondo Global Markets: Ondo Stocks overview: https://docs.ondo.finance/ondo-stocks/overview
- Backed: xStocks product and legal overview: https://docs.xstocks.fi/docs/product-legal-overview
- Dinari documentation: https://docs.dinari.com/

---

People want a single sentence covering whether a tokenized stock is a security, a
derivative, a share or something else. There is no single sentence, because there is no
single product. Four issuers on this site have chosen three different legal structures,
and each publishes its own description.

We are not lawyers, and characterising anyone's instrument for them is not something we
will do. An issuer's description of its own product is the issuer's to make, and an
issuer cannot object to its own disclosure. Putting the four side by side is useful,
because seen together they say something the individual documents do not.

## What each one says

**Robinhood**, issuing through Robinhood Assets (Jersey) Limited, describes its
tokens as debt securities. In its framing, that is a claim on the issuer, following
the share price, rather than the share or shareholder rights.

**Ondo Global Markets**, issuing through Ondo Global Markets (BVI) Limited via a
bankruptcy-remote special purpose vehicle, states its tokens are total return trackers
that give economic exposure similar to holding the share and reinvesting dividends,
not title to the share or shareholder rights.

**Backed**, through xStocks, operating as Backed Assets (JE) Limited, states its
xStocks are bearer certificates collateralized one to one by the share they track,
held with a custodian, and that the certificate carries the price rather than the share
itself or a shareholder vote.

**Dinari**, as Dinari, Inc., states a dShare is backed one to one by a real share held
at a US broker-dealer, and that cash dividends are paid to the holder's wallet as a
stablecoin.

## What emerges from reading them together

Three things no single document says on its own.

**All four decline to call it the share.** Every one of them draws that line themselves,
in their own words. "A stock token is not a share" is the one thing all four issuers
agree on and say without being asked, which is why it belongs in the category's
vocabulary rather than in ours.

**None of them offers a shareholder vote.** Two say so explicitly. The structures of
the other two do not carry one.

**The wrapper is the product.** A debt security, a bearer certificate and a share held
at a broker-dealer put you in three different positions, particularly if the issuer runs
into trouble. The price on the screen looks identical in all three cases, which is
exactly why the wrapper is worth reading.

## The word this site will not use

We do not describe any outbound link or any token as "verified". We publish "link
checked" with a date, because that is a fact about something a person did, and
"verified" is an endorsement we have not earned and could not stand behind.

The same restraint applies here. We report what an issuer says, dated and linked, and we
stop short of certifying that it is accurate, complete, or that it will hold up in a
court in Jersey.

## Where to read the originals

Every [issuer page](/issuers) carries that issuer's own description and its own
eligibility statement, quoted, with a link to the source document. The four documents
are linked at the top of this page too.

Read them. They are short, and they are written by the people who are liable for them.
This page is a reading aid.

---

Source: https://stocksonchain.io/wiki/how-issuers-describe-what-a-stock-token-is
Data read: 2026-07-29T00:00:00.000Z
Published by Gwei, Inc.
Licence: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Attribute to Stocks On Chain, https://stocksonchain.io.

Not a broker-dealer, exchange, or investment adviser. We do not sell securities and we hold no customer funds. Not investment advice, and not an offer or recommendation of any
asset. Nothing on this site is ranked or rated, and every ordered list states its
own sort key. This site publishes no issuer's rule on who may buy; it links to the issuer instead.
**Stocks On Chain never asks a reader to sign in or use a wallet.**