Anchored aStocks (Anchored Capital Ltd, BVI)

Research, firm shelf, model-client eligibility, and advisor selection are recorded separately. The scheduled date is the outside bound; new evidence can reopen the file sooner.

Anchored sells tokens on 80 US stocks and ETFs, named with an ”a” in front of the ticker: aAAPL for Apple, aBIL for the SPDR 1-3 Month T-Bill ETF. The issuer is Anchored Capital Ltd, a company in the British Virgin Islands. Each token is, in Anchored’s words, a receipt for ”a beneficial entitlement, under a bare trust, to underlying fund shares.” The fund is Anchored Finance SPC, a Cayman segregated portfolio company that buys the stock through a US broker it does not name. The holder owns no share, has no vote and no claim on the company; dividends arrive in USDC after taxes and fees. The program is small. On 23 September 2026 we read about 5,210 aBIL on chain, nearly all on Monad, worth about $477,000; the next largest tokens hold a few thousand dollars to tens of thousands each. The token terms, the trust deed and the fund’s offering document are not public: they sit behind the gated app. The contracts are unverified upgradeable proxies, and one private key sits at the top of the upgrade, pause and denylist powers. We reject it for client portfolios. It is closed to US persons, a first direct mint is $100,000, and the holder’s claim runs through two offshore layers whose governing documents we cannot read.

Research triggers: events that reopen the assessment or shelf decision
• Anchored publishes the token terms, trust instrument and SPC offering memorandum
• Anchored names its US broker-dealer and custodian
• The beacon, factory or compliance contracts are verified and their keys move to a multisig
• The tokens open to US persons

The research file

Who issues the tokens, and what stands behind them

Anchored’s FAQ names four companies. Anchored Capital Ltd, of the BVI, ”is the issuer of Anchored tokenized products unless a specific product document states otherwise” and runs the app. Anchored Finance SPC is ”the CIMA registered segregated portfolio company used as the underlying fund vehicle.” Anchored Labs Ltd builds the software and runs the website; Anchored Advisors Ltd is a BVI FSC Approved Manager. Brokerage and custody are done by third parties. The overview says the shares are ”held through a U.S.-regulated broker-dealer with direct clearing membership,” but no page names the firm.

The chain of claims has three links. A buyer pays USDC; the broker buys the stock for a segregated portfolio of the SPC; the SPC’s fund shares are held by Anchored Capital on bare trust; the token is the receipt for that trust interest. A segregated portfolio is meant to wall its assets off from the other portfolios and from Anchored’s own creditors, and a bare trust keeps the fund shares out of Anchored Capital’s estate. Both protections depend on documents we have not seen: the trust instrument, the portfolio’s offering memorandum and the token terms. Anchored’s own website terms say the rights attaching to each token ”are set out in the applicable governing documents,” and those are shown only to onboarded users.

What a holder owns

The FAQ is plain: ”A holder owns a token issued by Anchored Capital Ltd representing a beneficial entitlement, under a bare trust, to underlying fund shares, which in turn provide economic exposure to the corresponding underlying stock or ETF.” The overview adds that the tokens ”do not confer voting rights, shareholder communications, or any direct legal claim against the issuer of the underlying equity.” Dividends are paid in USDC ”net of taxes, fees and operational costs” to the wallet tied to the holder’s Anchored account. The docs do not say whether a buyer who takes a token on chain, with no Anchored account, is recognised as a beneficiary or receives dividends; Backpack’s similar receipts expressly refuse such buyers, and Anchored’s silence leaves the question open.

The proof of reserves comes from Accountable, which Anchored says reads the custody accounts by API and checks every 15 minutes that shares held match or exceed tokens issued. That checks the count of shares, not who owns them if Anchored or the broker fails.

Who may hold, and how a holder gets out

Anchored sells to ”professional and qualified investors,” after KYC for individuals or KYB for entities, and bars the United States outright: persons ”classified as ’U.S. persons’ (as defined under Regulation S …) … are prohibited from acquiring or redeeming Anchored tokens.” Canada, mainland China, Russia and a list of sanctioned or high-risk countries are also barred. The minimum is stated twice and differently: the investment page asks $100,000 in USDC for a first mint and nothing after, while the fee schedule says USD 90 directly and USD 1 through partners. Minting costs 10 basis points and withdrawal 21.

A holder redeems in the app: Anchored burns the token, sells the stock and pays net proceeds in USDC, ”subject to fees, liquidity, market hours, partner rules and compliance checks.” Trading runs 24 hours on weekdays, but primary redemption waits on US market hours. A holder without an account can only sell the token to someone else, on a partner exchange Anchored does not name or on chain.

Control on chain

We read aBIL at 0x4FC5…576f on Ethereum, Base, Arbitrum and Monad on 23 September 2026. Each aStock is a beacon proxy; the beacon, 0xfe29…5dd8, points every token to one implementation (a different build on Arbitrum), so a single change to the beacon rewrites all 80 tokens at once. The beacon’s owner is a proxy contract whose own owner is 0xcb43…2000, an ordinary key with no multisig code. The implementation source is not verified on Sourcify or Blockscout, so our reader marks the allowlist, freeze, pause and clawback questions unverified.

The bytecode tells more than the reader can prove. The token names a FACTORY and a COMPLIANCE contract and reverts with ”TransferPaused” and ”RedemptionPaused.” The factory, which holds each token’s admin role, has pause() and a TOKEN_PAUSE_ROLE held by another plain key, 0x97b5…1d6f; the compliance contract keeps a denylist (addToDenylist, requireNotBlocked) whose admin is the same 0xcb43… key. Each token has two minters and two burners, contracts run by Anchored. Anchored’s docs match: ”Administrators can pause transfers during emergencies,” and the platform may ”freeze addresses or block prohibited transactions.” Whether a burner can burn a holder’s balance without consent cannot be told without source.

Against the other stock tokens on file

Anchored’s structure is closest to Backpack’s: a BVI issuer holding the assets on bare trust. Backpack at least publishes its issuer terms and says, badly for holders, whom it recognises. xStocks and bTokens are notes under a published prospectus; Coinbase’s certificates name the custodian, Alpaca. Anchored names neither the broker nor the terms, adds a Cayman fund layer between the holder and the stock, and runs its keys from single addresses. Of the stock-token programs on file it is among the least documented in public.

Sources

The claims above trace to these. Where a number could not be independently verified, the thesis says so.

• Anchored docs: FAQs · primary · accessed 2026-09-23
  Supports: four Anchored entities and roles, bare trust over fund shares, no voting, freeze and pause powers, redemption mechanics, not for US persons or mainland China
• Anchored docs: Overview · primary · accessed 2026-09-23
  Supports: US broker-dealer with direct clearing, no claim on the underlying issuer, segregated portfolio
• Anchored docs: Anchored Tokens (contract list) · primary · accessed 2026-09-23
  Supports: 80 stock and ETF tokens, 3 fund tokens, same address on four chains, administrators can pause
• Anchored docs: Eligibility · primary · accessed 2026-09-23
  Supports: professional and qualified investors, Reg S US persons barred, prohibited countries
• Anchored docs: Investment & Redemption · primary · accessed 2026-09-23
  Supports: $100,000 first mint, $10 minimum redemption, USDC in and out
• Anchored docs: Fees & Taxes · primary · accessed 2026-09-23
  Supports: 10 bps mint, 21 bps withdrawal, USD 90 and USD 1 minimums
• Anchored Labs Ltd: Terms of Use (August 2026) · primary · accessed 2026-09-23
  Supports: governing documents are separate and prevail, app run by Anchored Capital Ltd
• aBIL beacon proxy on Base (Blockscout; implementation unverified) · primary · accessed 2026-09-23
  Supports: beacon 0xfe29…5dd8, FACTORY and COMPLIANCE contracts, role holders read on chain, supply by chain

Inherited controls

The research above describes the protocol layer. Every position also inherits the asset it holds and the chain it settles on. The most administered layer sets the position’s effective control grade; that is a control description, not a quality or suitability score.