Centrifuge and AI Startup Caesar Announce Equity Tokenization

Onchain equity: Last week, AI startup Caesar announced plans to become one of the first private companies to natively issue onchain equity. The issuance is slated for Q1 2026 and will leverage the SEC-registered transfer agent and blockchain infrastructure of tokenization platform Centrifuge.

Why it matters: Tokenized equities have been one of this year’s standout themes. In September, Galaxy became one of the first publicly traded companies to put its own equity onchain, while fintech players like Kraken, Robinhood, and Ondo drew attention by launching tokenized versions of U.S. stocks such as Nvidia and Tesla. But unlike Galaxy’s issuance, nearly all tokenized stocks circulating today are only synthetic wrappers.

• “Many so-called onchain equities in the market aren’t equity at all. They’re derivatives that only give you price exposure to an underlying asset. You don’t have voting rights, you don’t have dividend rights, and you have no real claim against the issuer if something goes wrong. What we’re doing here is entirely different. Caesar is issuing actual shares of a U.S. company in tokenized form, with full investor rights and full legal protections,“ Eli Cohen, Chief Legal Officer at Centrifuge Labs, told us in our interview.

A new frontier: After facilitating more than $2 billion in tokenized assets across institutional funds and credit strategies with partners like Janus Henderson and S&P Global, this move also marks Centrifuge’s expansion beyond asset management into corporate finance.

Interview: In our conversation with Cohen and Mark McKenzie, founder of Caesar, we explored why the startup chose to issue its equity onchain and what pieces of infrastructure still need to be built before tokenized securities can go mainstream.

On why Caesar is tokenizing its equity:

On the key benefits onchain equity brings for companies:

On why tokenized equities are picking up speed now:

On the current state of infrastructure and what still needs to be built:

On the growth opportunity behind onchain equities: