Figure Rolls Out OPEN to Take Public Equities Onchain — Interview with Co-Founder Mike Cagney

Onchain equity: Last week, blockchain lender Figure announced the launch of its On-Chain Public Equity Network (OPEN), a new platform that allows companies to list and trade equity natively onchain. Integrated into Figure’s existing stack, OPEN is designed to make shares directly usable for financing, enabling holders to borrow against and lend out stock while disintermediating the prime broker model.

• Why it matters: As one of the largest blockchain-based lenders, Figure has originated over $22 billion in loans and built out a broad digital asset product suite, including its public blockchain network Provenance, a blockchain-based lending platform, and trading infrastructure for crypto and tokenized assets.
• New platform: With OPEN, it is now combining that stack to bring public equities natively onchain, at the same time as traditional incumbents like Nasdaq, DTCC, and NYSE take steps toward tokenized equities.
• Market reaction: Since the announcement, $FIGR shares are up 28% in public markets.

Interview: In our conversation with Mike Cagney, co-founder and Executive Chairman at Figure, we discussed what OPEN enables beyond existing tokenization efforts, why he believes it will disrupt the traditional prime brokerage model, and how he expects onchain equity adoption and broader market structure to evolve over the next two years.

On what OPEN enables:

How OPEN differs from other existing tokenization efforts:

On the concrete benefits OPEN delivers:

On how OPEN adoption could unfold:

On the timeline for onchain equity adoption and whether blockchain reshapes or mirrors today's market structure: