$30 trillion. That is the size of the pool DTCC says could move onto a blockchain over time, and the first step starts this month with just 25 securities.
I follow a lot of tokenization headlines, and most of them come from small startups. This one is different. DTCC sits behind almost every US stock trade through its DTC custody business, which holds more than $114 trillion in assets. When a company like that launches a live service, banks and brokers actually pay attention.
The new Tokenization Service will start small on purpose. The first tokens will cover large-cap Russell 1000 stocks, major ETFs and US Treasuries, each one backed one-to-one by a real security held at DTC. Every token keeps the same CUSIP number, the same legal rights and the same investor protections as the normal version, which is exactly what big institutions need before they touch anything on-chain.
What changes is speed and hours. Instead of waiting for market hours, tokenized securities will be able to move around the clock between registered, screened wallets on the Canton Network and DTCC's own Besu network. Switching between the normal form and the token form should take about 15 minutes or less on business days. More than 30 institutions already tested the system in live trades back in July, so this is not just a slide deck.
My own take is simple: the starting list of 25 sounds tiny, but that caution is the point. DTCC is proving the plumbing first with the safest assets. If collateral, lending and repo deals can use quality stocks and Treasuries at night and on weekends, those assets stop sitting idle. DTCC also points to industry estimates of up to $100 billion in savings from the wider shift.
There are limits, of course. Only eligible DTC participants and approved wallets can use it at first, and the bigger expansion — Stellar, Circle's Arc network and on-chain settlement — is planned for 2027. Still, for me this is one of the clearest signs yet that tokenization is moving from crypto talk into real market infrastructure.
Read the full story on Crypto News Daily:
