DTCC opens $30 trillion tokenization service, excludes Stellar until 2025

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), a leading US post-trade financial services company, will launch commercial access to its Tokenization Service at the end of this month. This initiative enables major financial institutions to create digital representations, or “digital twins,” of traditional securities across a vast $30 trillion asset pool. This figure represents approximately one quarter of all assets currently managed by the DTCC’s central securities depository.

Limited access and first phase rollout

DTCC will restrict the initial phase of the service to selected major private bank networks, excluding public blockchains from participation until at least 2025. The first wave of tokenized liquidity is expected to circulate solely among participating banks and their clients on private blockchains. The Stellar public blockchain network, managed by the Stellar Development Foundation, will not be integrated until next year under the current schedule.

The project follows a closed pilot conducted in July, where more than 30 prominent Wall Street institutions tested the framework. According to a DTCC report issued on October 16, the system’s rollout will start conservatively with only 25 liquid securities. These include US Treasuries, a selection of major exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and large-cap stocks from the Russell 1000 index.

For now, the service is limited to US Treasuries, key ETFs, and top large-cap stocks, with future expansion tied to upcoming network integrations and regulatory readiness.

How the system functions

The new digital tokens issued through DTCC’s platform maintain a 1:1 linkage with their corresponding underlying securities. Each token retains its CUSIP code and legal rights, while DTCC continues to serve as the central registry holder, providing legal certainty to investors and upholding existing protection mechanisms. From an investor’s perspective, the transition will not alter their rights or the nature of their holdings.

DTCC’s decision to utilize private ledgers comes in response to institutional concerns about risk on public networks. The firm has opted for a closed architecture that relies on only two platforms at launch. These are the Canton Network, using the CIP-56 standard, and DTCC’s own private environment based on Hyperledger Besu, supporting the ERC-20 standard.

Mini dictionary: Hyperledger Besu is an open-source Ethereum client developed under the Hyperledger umbrella, enabling enterprises to set up private or consortium blockchain networks using Ethereum-compatible technology.

Participants can convert traditional securities into tokens via a user interface or API in 15 minutes or less, though tokenization requests are limited to East Coast business hours, from 2:00 to 18:00 ET. Once created, these tokenized assets can be transferred between institutional wallets at any time, regardless of public trading windows.

Next steps and future integration

Stellar’s public network remains in the queue for integration. The original plan set the first half of 2027 as the launch window for public blockchain connectivity, with no change to this timeline. DTCC intends to welcome the Stellar Development Foundation and Circle’s Arc solution simultaneously, leveraging Stellar’s SEP-41 standard for asset transfers in future phases.

By the time public network access is enabled, DTCC has pledged to expand the types of securities available on the platform, introduce support for activities such as corporate actions, and facilitate on-chain settlements of collateral using digital cash.

This tokenization initiative is regarded as one of the most significant efforts to link traditional financial assets, at the trillion-dollar scale, with distributed ledger technologies. However, for now, only authorized participants using private networks will have access, while public blockchains and their users, including Stellar, are expected to wait until at least next year before participating.