Ondo Finance has added proxy-voting capabilities to its tokenized equities line-up, letting crypto investors more directly participate in corporate governance — a move that narrows the gap between tokenized stocks and their traditional counterparts. The new feature, built in partnership with Broadridge Financial Solutions, integrates Broadridge’s ProxyVote system into Ondo’s platform. It lets holders of more than 250 tokenized securities available on Ondo review company filings and submit voting preferences via Broadridge’s infrastructure. Investors log in with crypto wallets to access the same sorts of documents and voting tools typically available only through brokerage accounts. Why it matters Tokenized equities — stocks and ETFs issued on blockchain rails — have been one of crypto’s fastest-growing segments. According to RWA.xyz, the category now holds over $1.1 billion in value locked, having roughly tripled over the past year. Ondo is the largest issuer in the space, listing more than $700 million in stock and ETF tokens on its Global Markets platform for non-U.S. investors. A longstanding critique of equity tokens is their limited governance rights: tokens are generally separate from the underlying shares and don’t automatically confer direct shareholder privileges. Ondo’s implementation doesn’t change that legal separation, but it does create a practical channel for token holders to express voting preferences that Ondo can apply when it votes the underlying shares it holds on behalf of token holders. “It really hits at the heart of Ondo's vision to make traditional financial assets more accessible,” Matthieu de Vergnes, Ondo’s global head of institutional, told CoinDesk. “You get all the benefits of being onchain — freely transferable, compatible with DeFi — and on top of that, you get the governance that you have from the underlying.” Broadridge’s role Broadridge, a major processor of proxy votes in traditional markets, is extending its workflows to support digital assets. The firm says the integration aims to unify the handling of both conventional and tokenized assets within the same systems, bringing familiar audit trails, transparency and compliance to on-chain securities. “Giving investors the same level of auditability, transparency and compliance will really go a long way in making the tokenized world more scalable, giving that level of trust to end investors,” Danielle Gurrieri, senior vice president and head of product management at Broadridge, said. What to watch The integration is a practical step toward closing the governance gap for tokenized equities and could help build investor trust and regulatory comfort in the space. Still, investors should be aware that Ondo’s tokens remain legally distinct from the underlying shares and that voting power depends on Ondo’s processes for applying token-holder preferences to those shares. Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news