DTCC Launches $30T Tokenized Stocks, ETFs and Treasuries

Published October 28, 2026, 5:45 PM PKT. Based on DTCC's announcement as carried by Business Wire on October 28, 2026 (primary source) and same-day reporting by The Defiant and KuCoin (secondary sources). DTCC had previewed an October 28 launch window in earlier industry coverage; this article covers the service going live, not the earlier preview.

The Depository Trust Company, a subsidiary of The Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation, launched the DTCC Tokenization Service on October 28, 2026, DTCC announced. The service mints tokenized representations of securities held in DTC custody, described by DTCC as digital twins, which investors can convert between traditional and tokenized form and deliver to digital wallets of their choice. DTCC said the tokens retain the ownership rights, investor protections and economic entitlements of their traditional counterparts, and that the launch brings tokenized securities into regulated financial markets through the infrastructure that already clears and settles U.S. securities trading.

The 34 securities in the first batch

The service launched with 34 securities available for tokenization, according to The Defiant and KuCoin's summaries of DTCC's announcement. The first batch is drawn from large-cap Russell 1000 stocks, select exchange-traded funds and U.S. Treasury securities, the same three categories covered by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission no-action letter that DTC received in December 2025, DTCC said in its announcement. Tokens are backed one to one by securities held by DTC, KuCoin reported, and traditional and on-chain markets share the same CUSIP code, the identifier used to track a security through clearing and settlement.

The shared CUSIP is the detail that separates this launch from earlier tokenized-stock products. Because the token carries the same identifier and the same legal rights as the underlying security, DTCC said, a holder's tokenized position is not a separate synthetic or a claim on an offshore vehicle, it is the same entitlement in a different form. That distinction matters for institutions: custody, corporate actions and investor protections follow the security itself, not a wrapper built around it. DTCC said the service is designed to let investors move assets more efficiently, access new liquidity pools and mobilize collateral within minutes.

Round-the-clock transfers, business-day conversions

Tokenized securities can be transferred peer to peer around the clock between DTC-registered wallets, KuCoin reported, citing DTCC's announcement. Conversion orders, the step that turns a traditional holding into a tokenized one or back again, run on a narrower schedule than the round-the-clock transfers, The Defiant reported. The split schedule is a practical limit worth stating plainly: the token can move at any hour once it exists, but creating or redeeming it still follows business-day conversion hours.

At launch the service runs on two networks: the Canton Network and DTCC's private Besu network, DTCC said. Additional blockchain networks are to be added in 2027, DTCC said, without naming them in the announcement. DTCC said the multi-network model is designed to let firms convert and deploy assets across traditional and tokenized markets while keeping liquidity in traditional markets intact.

Twenty firms signed, 150 in the working group

Twenty DTC participants have signed agreements to access the service, DTCC said, including 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. Future users will be onboarded on a rolling basis, DTCC said. The service was developed with input from more than 150 firms in the DTC Digital Assets Solutions Industry Working Group, DTCC said.

Beyond the direct participants, DTCC named a wider ecosystem of collaborators and partners, including BitGo Bank and Trust, Blockdaemon, Broadridge, DFNS, DRW, Fireblocks, HIFI, Kaleido, Matter Labs, Ondo, Prometheum Capital, Talos, Taurus, Tradeweb, Transcend and Virtu. "Today marks the culmination of years of work to bring tokenized securities into a regulated framework supported by trusted market infrastructure," Frank La Salla, DTCC's president and chief executive officer, said in the announcement. "By extending DTC's resiliency, governance and operational standards into digital markets, we are establishing the foundation for responsible institutional adoption at scale."

The December 2025 no-action letter that cleared the path

The launch follows nearly a year of regulatory groundwork. In December 2025, DTC received a no-action letter from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission authorizing it to tokenize Russell 1000 constituents, exchange-traded funds tracking major indices and U.S. Treasury securities, DTCC said. About seven months later, DTCC and more than 30 firms completed initial limited-production trades and multiple on-chain transactions, DTCC said. Brian Steele, DTCC's managing director and president of clearing and securities services, said the breadth of engagement "demonstrates that the industry is ready to move beyond experimentation and toward practical adoption."

The scale of the plumbing behind the launch is large. DTC holds more than $114 trillion in assets under custody, DTCC said, and in 2025 DTCC's subsidiaries processed securities transactions valued at $4.7 quadrillion. Nadine Chakar, DTCC's managing director and global head of digital assets, called the launch "only the beginning of DTCC's ultimate goal to build the Web3 ecosystem of the future that bridges established, trusted market infrastructure and digital ledger technology."

What to watch next is concrete: which additional networks DTCC adds in 2027, how fast the 20 signed participants move from agreements to live tokenized positions, whether conversion hours widen beyond business days, and whether rival tokenized-stock venues, several of which face objections from the very companies whose shares they tokenize, adjust their models now that the custodian of the underlying shares offers the token itself. For crypto markets, the near-term effect is infrastructure, not price: no new token was launched, and DTCC's announcement makes no claim about any cryptocurrency's value.

This article is news reporting and is not investment advice.

Sources

• DTCC via Business Wire, DTCC Tokenization Service Goes Live, Marking Major Milestone in the Adoption of Digital Assets (October 28, 2026), primary source
• The Defiant, DTCC's Tokenization Service Goes Live With 34 Securities (October 28, 2026), secondary source
• KuCoin News, DTCC Launches Tokenization Service, Initially Supporting 34 Securities (October 28, 2026), secondary source