HashKey has joined the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation’s (DTCC) Digital Assets Advisory Services Industry Working Group, becoming the first Asian digital asset service provider to participate in the initiative, according to a Wednesday announcement.

The company joins more than 100 global financial institutions and asset managers in the working group, whose participants include JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Nasdaq, and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Together, members will help define how tokenized assets are issued, settled, and safeguarded at an institutional scale.

The DTCC is a core post-trade infrastructure provider in traditional financial markets, serving as a central clearing and settlement hub for US securities. Its working group was formed to connect traditional finance with decentralized finance (DeFi) infrastructure. In conjunction with the working group, the DTCC plans to launch access to tokenized securities in October.

The DTCC custodies $114 trillion in liquid assets, including stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), making it one of the most significant institutions in global capital markets.

For HashKey, the seat at the table marks a step in bridging Asian digital asset markets with US post-trade infrastructure. The firm operates under licenses in Hong Kong, including one of the city’s virtual asset trading platform licenses, and has expanded across Asia in recent years. Its participation gives Asian digital asset market expertise a direct channel into standards being drafted for institutional tokenization, at a time when major financial centers including Hong Kong and Singapore have been developing their own tokenization frameworks.

The development builds on earlier regulatory progress. In December, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a “no action” letter to a DTCC subsidiary, enabling it to offer a new securities market tokenization service.

SEC Chairman Paul Atkins said the green light for the DTCC’s pilot is only the beginning, as the SEC will consider an innovation exemption allowing builders to begin “transitioning our markets onchain” without being burdened by “cumbersome regulatory requirements,” according to a Dec. 12 post on X.

Atkins first proposed an innovation exemption for tokenization during his remarks at the Crypto Task Force Roundtable on DeFi on June 9.

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