The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), a central pillar of U.S. securities markets, has launched a tokenisation service covering 34 securities with a combined value of about $30 trillion, marking a major step in bringing traditional financial assets on-chain. Tokenisation, in this context, means representing conventional securities as blockchain-based tokens that can move on digital ledgers while remaining tied to the underlying assets.

The service initially supports selected Russell 1000 stocks, exchange-traded funds, and U.S. Treasury securities, operating through the Canton Network and DTCC's private Besu blockchain. Twenty financial institutions, including JPMorgan, Citi, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, and UBS, have signed agreements to access the platform.

The architecture enables eligible institutions to move between conventional securities infrastructure and blockchain environments without surrendering the protections attached to their existing holdings.

"Today marks the culmination of years of work to bring tokenized securities into a regulated framework supported by trusted market infrastructure," said Frank La Salla, DTCC's president and CEO.

Through the service, eligible institutions can convert securities held in DTCC's custody system into on-chain tokens that retain the underlying assets' ownership rights and investor protections. Once tokenized, the assets can move between registered wallets around the clock, potentially improving collateral mobility and reducing settlement delays.

DTCC plans to add support for Stellar and Circle's Arc blockchain in 2027, alongside tools for settling transactions with digital cash and using tokenized securities as collateral. The near-term markers of the service's reach will be whether coverage expands beyond the initial 34 securities, and whether and how quickly the twenty signatories move from signed agreements to live usage of the platform.

The launch moves tokenization beyond isolated industry experiments and into established U.S. market infrastructure, where DTCC's subsidiary holds more than $114 trillion in securities. The service follows a December 2025 no-action letter from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission authorizing the tokenization of specified securities — a form of regulatory relief in which the agency signals it does not intend to recommend enforcement action for the covered activity.