# Stocks Ownership ### **Traditional Brokers vs. Sailing Protocol: Ownership and Balance Sheets** In traditional finance, when you purchase stocks through a broker, they hold the shares in your name. However, the ownership title is logged internally on their balance sheets. While users "own" the stock, the broker acts as a custodian, often bundling shares and offering fractional ownership via their internal systems. Essentially, the user relies on the broker to manage the stock. **Sailing Protocol** redefines this model by using **blockchain technology and tokenized contracts**. When you buy stocks through our protocol, your ownership is **directly tied to a tokenized version** of the asset on the blockchain. Instead of being held by a middleman, each token you own represents a specific portion (or full share) of the underlying stock, stored transparently on the blockchain. This **tokenized contract** ensures that your ownership is secure and traceable—**completely removing the need for intermediaries**. ### **How Does Tokenization and Ownership Work on the Blockchain?** Whenever you purchase a stock via **Sailing Protocol**, a **tokenized representation** of that stock is minted and assigned to your wallet. This **smart contract** acts as the **proof of ownership**, ensuring that you hold the stock directly through the token—no custodians involved. #### **What Happens If I Buy Partial Shares?** If you’re buying **partial shares**, Sailing Protocol purchases the **full stock** and assigns your fractional portion to your wallet, while the remainder is held in the **Sailing Protocol Treasury**. This system allows users to buy small portions of high-value stocks without compromising ownership integrity, ensuring that all tokenized shares represent **actual stock holdings**—not synthetic assets. If you purchase part of a stock—let’s say 0.5 of a share—**Sailing Protocol** buys the entire stock and attaches your portion to your wallet. The remainder is held in the **Sailing Protocol Treasury** until it’s sold to other users, ensuring that each token represents a portion of real stock. ### How Are Orders Executed and Matched with the Market? For every purchase or sale of stock, **Sailing Protocol executes a real market order** on your behalf. Once the order is processed, the **smart contract** updates the stock ownership details on your wallet. All transactions are logged on the blockchain, ensuring **full transparency and traceability**. #### What Role Does the Order Book Play? The **order book** tracks every purchase and sale of stock, ensuring that transactions are executed efficiently. This system manages both full and fractional shares, guaranteeing that smart contracts accurately assign ownership across multiple users. ### **How Do I Receive Transaction Confirmations?** Every time you buy or sell stock via **Sailing Protocol**, an **email confirmation** is sent to you, containing the transaction details: amount of stock, price, and market execution information. This ensures full transparency, while the blockchain-backed smart contract acts as an **immutable proof of ownership**. ### **Why Is Tokenization a Game-Changer for Stock Trading?** #### **Tokenization** offers several key benefits: * **Transparency**: Every transaction is immutably recorded on the blockchain, ensuring that all parties can verify ownership. * **Efficiency**: No intermediaries or settlement delays—ownership is updated instantly via smart contracts. * **Flexibility**: Fractional ownership allows users to purchase smaller portions of stocks, making high-value shares accessible. * **Immutability**: Once a stock is tokenized, the ownership cannot be altered, ensuring the integrity of each transaction. --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://docs.sailingprotocol.org/stocks-ownership.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.