US broker-dealer Alpaca is among 20 firms that have signed up for the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation's (DTCC) tokenization service, which went live on Wednesday. The service allows participants to convert US stocks, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and Treasury securities held at the depository into digital tokens, and to convert them back. With the go-live, tokenization moves out of controlled tests and pilots and into the core infrastructure of the US stock market.

Tokenized stocks circulating through Alpaca's own network are issued by third parties and generally provide economic exposure without voting or dividend rights, according to the company's risk disclosure. DTCC, by contrast, says the tokens issued through its service retain the ownership rights and investor protections attached to the underlying securities it safeguards — a pool of assets valued at more than $114 trillion. For anyone comparing tokenized-stock products, that rights gap is the crux: it separates tokens that carry a share's legal attributes from those that only mirror the underlying asset's economic performance.

Regulatory Backdrop

The launch follows a no-action letter issued by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in December 2025, as well as test trades conducted with more than 30 firms in July. In a separate move, the SEC approved a Nasdaq pilot in March to trial the trading of tokenized Russell 1000 stocks alongside conventional shares.

Who Made the List — and Who Did Not

Firms already active in tokenized US equities took differing approaches to DTCC's launch lists. Ondo and DRW, both early partners of Alpaca's tokenization network, appear among the collaborators named by DTCC, alongside BitGo, Fireblocks and Tradeweb.

Notably absent are Kraken, whose xStocks product surpassed $25 billion in cumulative volume within eight months, and eToro, which announced tokenized US shares in October 2025. Robinhood, which offers stock tokens to customers in the European Union, is also missing. Their absence means some of the most prominent tokenized-stock products will operate outside the new service, at least initially. Of the six firms named here, three made DTCC's lists, with Alpaca the only one registered as a participant.

Alpaca's Role in the July Trades

Alpaca joined DTCC's industry working group in May. In July, the company said, it helped partners tokenize shares of SPY and Circle held at the depository on the Canton Network and DTCC's private Besu-based network, before redeeming them through its own system.

That system is Alpaca's Instant Tokenization Network, launched in October 2025 to let institutions exchange shares for tokens in kind. According to the company, several partners now use it to mint and redeem tokenized US equities. Alpaca has argued that tokenized US equities scale "when traditional markets and onchain markets share the same foundation."

One of Alpaca's backers is now a fellow participant in the DTCC service. Citadel Securities took part in the $150 million funding round announced in January that valued Alpaca at $1.15 billion.

The Broader Participant List

The remaining participants span traditional finance, from J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley and UBS to clearing firms Apex Clearing, Clear Street and DriveWealth. Among retail-focused brokers, Fidelity Investments and Edward Jones signed up, while Charles Schwab and Interactive Brokers are not among the initial 20. Taken together, the roster brings banks, clearing firms and retail-focused brokers into a single service, spanning several layers of the brokerage chain at once.

Eligible assets at launch include Russell 1000 constituents, ETFs tracking major indices and US Treasury securities. That Russell 1000 scope overlaps with the universe covered by Nasdaq's approved pilot, putting the depository-based service and the exchange-led trial on parallel tracks. DTCC said it will onboard additional participants on a rolling basis — a process that could eventually bring in firms absent from the initial 20 — and plans to add support for more blockchain networks in 2027.

Source: CryptoNewsNet; the article originally appeared on Finance Magnates.