DTCC to Launch Tokenization Service With 50+ Firms in 2026

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, through its subsidiary The Depository Trust Company (DTC), will open a tokenization service developed with a working group of more than 50 financial firms. The timeline calls for limited production trades to begin in July 2026 and full commercial availability in October 2026. The SEC issued a No‑Action Letter in December 2025 that permits DTC to run tokenization services for a three-year period under defined conditions.

DTC currently custodizes over $114 trillion in assets. The service will convert holdings the firm safekeeps into digital tokens while keeping existing entitlements, investor protections and ownership rights in place. The SEC authorization initially covers major index exchange-traded funds, constituents of the Russell 1000 and U.S. Treasury bills, notes and bonds.

The industry working group includes asset managers, global banks, exchanges, market infrastructure providers, digital asset firms and brokerages. Participating firms include BlackRock, J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, State Street, Wells Fargo, UBS, BNP Paribas, NYSE Group, Nasdaq, Citi, Broadridge, Circle, Fireblocks, Anchorage Digital, Robinhood, Charles Schwab and Citadel Securities.

Specialist tokenizers and infrastructure firms were invited to design market rules and technical standards. Ondo Finance, a large tokenizer of stocks and ETFs, joined to advise on market design and operations. Broadridge has been testing repo tokenization on its Distributed Ledger Repo platform and reported an average of $368 billion in daily transactions in April 2026, a 268% year-over-year increase and roughly 4% above March 2026.

Market data show rapid growth in tokenized assets. By the first quarter of 2026, the market capitalization of tokenized assets reached $27.3 billion, a 245% increase year-over-year. Tokenized U.S. Treasury instruments accounted for more than $15 billion in total value.

Institutions and infrastructure firms are piloting collateral and settlement uses for tokenized assets. BlackRock, OKX and Standard Chartered established a framework that allows institutional clients to use BlackRock’s BUIDL tokenized Treasury fund as yield-bearing collateral while custodial services remain with Standard Chartered.

Parallel developments in market infrastructure have advanced tokenized trading. Nasdaq received regulatory approval in March 2026 to list and trade tokenized securities. NYSE has outlined a separate trading venue that would support 24/7 trading with stablecoin settlement. Firms such as Broadridge have invested in projects aimed at improving digital collateral mobility.

DTCC says the tokenized assets will integrate with existing custody and settlement processes, with DTC maintaining custody functions and participants helping to shape operational standards, governance, settlement mechanics and connectivity with traditional systems.

The phased roll-out is designed to give market participants time to test operations, compliance frameworks and interoperability. The July 2026 limited trades are expected to cover a small set of approved securities and controlled counterparty arrangements, with broader access and product coverage planned for October.

Frank La Salla, DTCC president and CEO, described the effort as “bringing new levels of liquidity, transparency and efficiency to investors.” Horacio Barakat, Broadridge’s global head of digital innovation, characterized the firm’s work as “demonstrating how tokenization can operate at scale within core market infrastructure.”