The depository holds more than $114 trillion, but a December no-action letter confines tokenization to Russell 1000 constituents, index-tracking ETFs and US Treasuries. CoinDesk reported that collateral use and digital-cash settlement are planned for 2027.
The Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation said on October 28 that its Tokenization Service is live, operated by its subsidiary The Depository Trust Company. Eligible participants can convert entitlements in securities already held in DTC custody between traditional and tokenized form and deliver them to digital wallets of their choice. DTCC calls the tokens digital twins and says they retain the ownership rights, investor protections and economic entitlements of the securities behind them.
The launch perimeter is narrower than the depository's size suggests. Thirty-four securities are eligible at launch, representing roughly $30 trillion in market value, a DTCC spokesperson told CoinDesk, citing the company's product website. DTC holds more than $114 trillion in assets under custody. The two numbers measure different things, custody holdings against the market value of the eligible names, and neither says how much has actually been tokenized, a figure the release does not give.
What sets the boundary is a regulator's letter rather than the technology. DTC received a no-action letter from the Securities and Exchange Commission in December 2025 authorizing it to tokenize Russell 1000 constituents, exchange-traded funds tracking major indices, and US Treasury securities. The release gives no day in December and states no conditions or expiry for the letter, and it does not extend the service beyond those three categories.
The service runs on the Canton Network and DTCC's own private Besu network. The release says further blockchain networks will be added in 2027 without naming any of them; CoinDesk reported that the plan covers Stellar and Circle's Arc, and linked to its own earlier report from May on the Stellar connection.
Several of the capabilities that make tokenized collateral useful are not part of this launch. Conversion runs during business hours with a target of 15 minutes or less, and tokens can then move between registered wallets around the clock subject to compliance restrictions, according to CoinDesk, which also reported that broader corporate-action support, settlement using digital cash and the use of tokenized securities as collateral are planned for 2027. DTCC's release lists mobilizing collateral "within minutes" among the service's aims rather than among the functions now running.
Twenty DTC participants have signed agreements for access: Alpaca, Apex Clearing Corporation, Barclays, Bank of America, BNP Paribas, Brown Brothers Harriman, Citadel Securities, Citi, Clear Street, DriveWealth, Edward Jones, Fidelity Investments, Interchange Clearing, J.P. Morgan, Marex, Mirae Asset Securities (USA) Inc., Morgan Stanley, State Street, UBS and Velocity Capital LLC. Signing is not the same as using it. The release says future users will be onboarded on a rolling basis and does not say how many of the twenty are transacting.
DTCC also named seventeen collaborators and partners, among them BitGo Bank & Trust, Blockdaemon, Broadridge, DRW, Fireblocks, Ondo, Taurus, Tradeweb and Virtu, and said more than 150 firms take part in its DTC Digital Assets Solutions Industry Working Group. About seven months after the no-action letter, DTCC and more than 30 firms completed what the release describes as initial limited-production trades and multiple on-chain transactions. It gives no counts, volumes or values for them.
Frank La Salla, DTCC's president and chief executive, said the launch marks "the culmination of years of work to bring tokenized securities into a regulated framework." Brian Steele, managing director and president of clearing and securities services, said the industry "is ready to move beyond experimentation and toward practical adoption." Nadine Chakar, managing director and global head of DTCC Digital Assets, said "This is only the beginning of DTCC's ultimate goal to build the Web3 ecosystem of the future."
The structural claim is that these tokens are backed one for one by securities held at DTC and keep the ownership record, which CoinDesk contrasted with synthetic tokens that only track a share price. That line has divided this year's tokenized equity launches. Securitize put 12 US stocks on Solana as entitlements rather than shares, with its own disclosure saying holders are not registered shareholders unless they convert, and the SEC gave tokenized stock venues five years and tight caps on what they may list. Others are further back: NYSE's planned venue has a distributor before it has approval.
A Citi projection cited by CoinDesk puts the tokenized securities market at $5.5 trillion by 2030, a forecast rather than a measurement. What the release establishes is narrower: a regulated depository can now issue tokenized claims on 34 named securities, on two permissioned networks, during business hours, with the collateral and digital-cash uses still a year out.
