Dinari and tZERO have announced a strategic partnership to create what the companies describe as an operating framework for broker-dealers looking to offer tokenized U.S. equities. The collaboration combines Dinari’s tokenized equity issuance technology with tZERO’s regulated brokerage, custody, clearing, settlement and shareholder servicing infrastructure, allowing firms to integrate tokenized stocks through a single connection.
The announcement comes as regulated tokenized securities have become one of the most competitive areas in digital assets. Broker-dealers, exchanges and infrastructure providers are increasingly racing to bring traditional equities on-chain while preserving existing investor protections and complying with securities regulations. The latest partnership reflects a broader industry shift away from token issuance alone toward building complete market infrastructure capable of supporting institutional adoption.
Combining Issuance With Regulated Market Infrastructure
Under the partnership, Dinari’s dShares technology will integrate with tZERO’s regulated brokerage infrastructure, creating a platform that covers issuance, custody, trading, clearing, settlement and shareholder servicing for tokenized U.S. equities.
Rather than requiring broker-dealers to source multiple vendors for different parts of the lifecycle, the companies aim to provide a unified operational framework that can plug into existing brokerage businesses.
Gabriel Otte, Co-Founder and CEO of Dinari, said:
“Tokenized equities won’t reach mainstream adoption until broker-dealers can offer them as naturally as they offer traditional securities. By bringing together the critical components required to support tokenized equities, we’re making it significantly easier for broker-dealers to launch and scale these offerings, and providing the rails for new products and services built on top of tokenized securities. The end goal is to enable investors to do more with their stocks.”
Unlike many early tokenization models, Dinari’s dShares are built around a custodial structure in which each token is backed by the corresponding underlying security held with licensed custodians. According to the company, investors retain the economic rights associated with owning traditional equities, including dividend payments, corporate actions and execution at the National Best Bid and Offer.
Building A Complete Operating Stack
The joint offering is designed to address one of the biggest operational hurdles facing broker-dealers entering tokenized securities: assembling multiple regulated service providers into a compliant workflow.
The integrated framework includes:
- 24/7 trading for eligible tokenized equities
- Native fractional investing
- Stablecoin settlement and dividend distribution
- Automated corporate actions and proxy servicing
- Multiple custody models, including omnibus accounts and self-custody wallets
- API connectivity for broker-dealers, fintechs, RIAs and neobanks
The companies also outlined longer-term plans to support permissioned on-chain liquidity, collateral management, financing and issuer-sponsored tokenization programs as the network expands.
Alan Konevsky, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of tZERO, said:
“Broker-dealers want more than tokenized assets. They need turnkey regulated infrastructure, operational simplicity, and economics that make adoption worthwhile. This collaboration is intended to provide a practical path for firms to participate in tokenized securities markets through a framework that combines issuance, trading, custody, clearing, settlement, and asset servicing built around proven products, known demand and developed market infrastructure that bridges traditional and DeFi ecosystems with trusted regulated trading and custody solutions that appeal to institutional users.”
Competition In Tokenized Equities Continues To Accelerate
The partnership arrives during a period of accelerating investment in regulated tokenized securities infrastructure.
While tokenized Treasury products have already surpassed several billion dollars in assets, market participants increasingly see public equities as the next major opportunity. The challenge has been replicating the regulatory protections, market structure and operational processes that investors expect from traditional securities markets while taking advantage of blockchain-native features such as continuous trading and programmable settlement.
Infrastructure providers are responding by building complete ecosystems rather than isolated products.
Earlier this year, 24X Exchange advanced plans to support tokenized U.S. equities through regulated market infrastructure, while several digital asset firms have expanded efforts around tokenized stocks targeting institutional investors. Traditional financial institutions are also increasing investments in tokenization as regulators across multiple jurisdictions develop frameworks for blockchain-based securities.
For broker-dealers, the appeal extends beyond offering another investment product. Tokenized equities could enable continuous trading, lower settlement friction, fractional ownership, programmable corporate actions and new collateral models that integrate with blockchain-based financial services.
Whether those capabilities become mainstream will depend less on token technology itself than on whether firms can deploy regulated operational infrastructure without rebuilding their existing businesses.
The Dinari and tZERO partnership is aimed squarely at solving that problem by packaging issuance, custody, trading, settlement and servicing into a single operating framework that broker-dealers can integrate as demand for tokenized securities continues to grow.
