Fairmint

What it is

Fairmint is an SEC-registered transfer agent and on-chain equity platform that brings the traditional cap table onto the blockchain. Instead of equity living in spreadsheets and law firm vaults reconciled by layers of intermediaries, Fairmint encodes it into smart contracts that automatically enforce securities law — handling issuance, transfers, compliance, and distributions without manual intervention. The platform has processed over $1.6 billion in on-chain securities transactions and is working toward broker-dealer registration to enable secondary market trading. Co-founded by Joris Delanoue, who previously sold Nexteem, a cloud computing company, before most organizations trusted the cloud, Fairmint is built on the thesis that compliance should live in code rather than in people — lowering costs, reducing errors, and creating a single source of truth for ownership. The programmability of on-chain equity also unlocks something previously impossible for private company shareholders: using illiquid shares as collateral for loans, turning paper wealth into purchasing power without requiring an exit.

Who it's for

Founders managing complex cap tables who want lower costs, faster transfers, and embedded compliance. Particularly valuable for companies approaching growth-stage fundraising or eventual liquidity events where cap table accuracy and transfer speed directly affect deal economics. Also relevant for companies that want to offer employees a path to liquidity before IPO.

Why it's better

• •Compliance lives in the smart contract, not in a law firm — transfers execute automatically with embedded rule enforcement rather than manual review and reconciliation.
• •SEC-registered transfer agent with $1.6B+ in processed transactions provides the regulatory legitimacy that blockchain-only cap table tools lack.
• •Programmable equity enables on-chain lending against illiquid private shares — turning paper wealth into real purchasing power without requiring an exit.
• •Single source of truth for ownership eliminates the cap table discrepancies that surface at the worst possible moment, typically during due diligence for a funding round or acquisition.
• •Broker-dealer registration in progress will unlock secondary market trading, creating liquidity pathways that currently require expensive tender offer processes.