Securitize CEO pushes onchain shareholder records over paper proxies

Securitize CEO Carlos Domingo is advocating for companies to communicate with investors digitally, replacing paper forms and mailed proxy votes with blockchain-based shareholder records. What Domingo is proposing The core idea is straightforward. Rather than relying on stacked intermediaries to track who owns a company, Securitize wants a blockchain-based register to serve as the definitive record of public company ownership. That puts the firm’s model in direct contrast with the framework built around the Depository Trust Company, better known as DTC. The current setup works a bit like a game of telephone. A company issues shares, those shares pass through layers of intermediaries, and by the end of the chain the issuer often can’t tell who is actually holding them. Beneficial ownership, meaning the identity of the person who truly benefits from holding the shares, gets concealed. Sending out communications, paying dividends and running proxy votes all become harder than they need to be. Securitize’s pitch is that an onchain register cuts through the fog. Issuers would get direct insight into their capitalization tables and a simpler way to reach shareholders. The company’s status...