DTCC processes live tokenised asset trades with 30 firms

DTCC has processed live production trades using tokenised assets held at DTC as part of an initiative involving more than 30 firms.

The trades used securities held at The Depository Trust Company that were converted into tokens and deployed in a production environment. The exercise covered several asset classes and transaction types, including collateral pledges, securities lending, US Treasury and repo delivery-versus-payment trades, equity delivery-versus-payment trades, equity delivery-versus-delivery trades, equity token transfers and central counterparty margin workflows.

The move marks a step for one of the world's largest post-trade market infrastructure operators as established financial institutions test how tokenised versions of conventional securities can be used in market activity. DTCC described the initiative as the largest tokenisation effort to date in terms of breadth of use cases, asset classes, and number of participants.

The digital conversions took place on HyperLedger Besu, which DTCC uses as a private network, and on Canton, a public network. DTCC said this multi-chain approach is designed to give users a choice of networks while supporting scale and resilience.

The Tokenisation Service is intended to issue tokenised representations, or digital twins, of real-world assets and deliver them to wallets chosen by DTC participants. Securities held at DTC can move between traditional and tokenised formats, allowing participants to pursue digital asset transactions while retaining their existing position within the depository system.

The production event brought together firms from across traditional finance and digital asset markets. Participants included BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, BNP Paribas Securities Corporation, Citadel Securities, CME Group, Nasdaq, New York Stock Exchange, State Street Investment Management, Vanguard, Microsoft, Broadridge, Chainlink, Circle, Fireblocks, Tradeweb and Virtu Financial, among others.

Regulatory path

The work follows regulatory clearance for the service in the US. Seven months earlier, DTC received a no-action letter from the Securities and Exchange Commission allowing the depository to operate a tokenisation service for real-world assets held in custody.

That approval gave the market infrastructure group a way to test tokenisation in a live setting rather than in a closed pilot or proof of concept. The latest trades were designed to reflect real-world use cases and to show that tokenised instruments could be processed with protections and operational standards similar to those used in traditional infrastructure.

"DTCC demonstrated that we can apply the same institutional rigour to tokenisation as we do for traditional assets while continuing to safeguard the integrity and resiliency of the global financial markets," said Frank La Salla, President and CEO of DTCC.

"The DTCC Tokenisation Service will institutionalise tokenised markets on day one and will be a critical enabler of the digital ecosystem of the future, while reinforcing trust, safety and scale in a digital world," La Salla said.

Industry pressure

Large financial groups have spent several years examining whether tokenised securities and other digital representations of assets can cut costs, reduce settlement delays and improve collateral movement. Many of those efforts have remained limited in scope, often due to legal uncertainty, fragmented technology choices, and the difficulty of linking blockchain-based systems to existing market infrastructure.

DTCC occupies a central role in US post-trade processing, giving its experiments unusual weight in the wider market. Its tokenisation work is being developed with an industry working group that has grown to more than 100 members and partners.

Brian Steele, President of Clearing & Securities Services at DTCC, said the production event focused on practical market uses rather than abstract testing.

"DTCC successfully showcased how tokenisation can enable real-time collateral mobility, enhance liquidity and capital efficiency, reduce counterparty risk and support interoperability between traditional and digital ecosystems," Steele said.

"Market participants will soon have the best of both worlds because DTC-tokenized assets maintain the same investor protections, entitlements and ownership rights as traditional securities, all while enabling greater efficiency, programmability and security," he said.a

Launch plans

DTCC said the production milestone sets the stage for the launch of its Tokenisation Service in October 2026. The service is intended to let market participants access tokenised assets without abandoning the legal and operational frameworks used in mainstream securities markets.

Nadine Chakar, Managing Director and Global Head of DTCC Digital Assets, said the company relied on a broad group of market participants when shaping the service.

"Innovation requires collaboration. Because of DTCC's role in global financial markets, we convened key industry participants to help us design the DTCC Tokenization Service," Chakar said.

"DTCC demonstrated that the safest, most direct path to decentralisation runs through trusted financial market infrastructures and that legacy and Web3 ecosystems can coexist without disruption," she said.