The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), the company at the center of the US stock market’s plumbing, launched its DTCC Tokenization Service (DTS) on Wednesday, October 28, 2026. For the first time, big financial firms can turn real securities held at DTCC into blockchain tokens, and back again.
Key facts
- Who runs it: the Depository Trust Company (DTC), the DTCC unit that holds securities on behalf of banks and brokers. DTC has more than $114 trillion in assets in its custody.
- What it does: approved users can convert securities they hold at DTC into tokenized form and send them to digital wallets of their choice, within minutes. They can also turn the tokens back into ordinary holdings.
- Same rights: DTCC says the tokens keep the same ownership rights, investor protections and payouts as the original securities. They are not copies or bets on the price.
- What can be tokenized: large US company shares from the Russell 1000 index, ETFs that track major indices, and US Treasury securities.
- Who signed up: 20 firms, including JPMorgan, Citi, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, Fidelity Investments, Citadel Securities, UBS, Barclays, BNP Paribas, State Street and Edward Jones. More will join over time.
- Which blockchains: for now, the Canton Network and a private network run by DTCC. More networks are planned for 2027.
How we got here
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) gave DTCC the go-ahead in December 2025, with a “no-action” letter saying it would not object to the program. DTCC then ran a pilot in July 2026, with real trades of tokenized securities, before today’s full launch.
DTCC’s chief executive, Frank La Salla, called the launch the result of years of work to bring tokenized securities into a regulated framework, with the same safety standards DTCC already applies to traditional markets.
Context
Tokenization, putting traditional assets such as stocks and bonds on a blockchain, is one of the hottest topics on Wall Street this year. Exchanges and crypto companies are racing to offer tokenized shares, but some of those plans have run into trouble: several large US companies have objected to the OKX–ICE tokenized stock plan.
DTCC’s service is different because the tokens come straight from the place where the shares are already officially recorded, so the ownership question is settled from the start.
Why it matters
DTCC is not a startup testing an idea: it is the institution that settles almost every US stock trade. When it starts issuing tokens that stand for real securities in its own custody, with the biggest banks on board, tokenization moves from experiment to part of the core financial system. Over time this could mean faster settlement and easier use of stocks and Treasuries as collateral, including in crypto markets.
This article is for information only and is not financial advice.
