MAJOR Market Infrastructure News: Depository Trust Chooses A Second Blockchain For Tokenization

From Ledger Insights, May 27:

DTC tokenization service to add Stellar as second public blockchain 

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) and the Stellar Development Foundation announced plans to enable DTC tokenized assets on the Stellar network, with availability expected in the first half of 2027. Stellar becomes the second public blockchain to connect to the service after the Canton Network, and notably neither chain is Ethereum compatible despite DTCC’s own AppChain running natively on EVM infrastructure.

The announcement advances DTCC’s multi-chain strategy following the December 2025 SEC no action letter that allowed DTC to tokenize custodied assets. The service covers highly liquid securities including Russell 1000 constituents, major index ETFs, and U.S. Treasuries. Limited live transactions are planned for July 2026 with a full launch in October 2026, although Stellar will not be ready at launch.

Stellar handles tokens as native base layer primitives rather than as smart contracts, which is the standard approach on Ethereum and EVM-compatible chains. That distinction matters for DTC’s compliance requirements. The no action letter requires all supported chains to restrict token movements to registered wallets, and the ability for DTC to force transfer or burn tokens when needed to address errors, lost tokens or malfeasance.

Article continues …[Paywall] 

At CoinDesk May 28:

DTCC plans to bring tokenized assets to Stellar in latest Wall Street blockchain push
The U.S. market infrastructure giant targets connecting tokenized stocks, ETFs and Treasuries to Stellar in the first half of 2027.... 

Here's the DTCC's Tokenization page. 

They go out of their way to stress:

"Our new tokenization service will serve as the bridge between TradFi and DeFi and, importantly, offer the same investor protections and ownership rights as traditional book-entry securities currently held in custody by DTC."  

Previously: 

February 2016 -  Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation Issues White Paper On Blockchain (DTCC)
I'm a week late getting to this but wanted to have it available for future ref....

May Day 2025 - "The ‘Amazonification’ of Trading"
It is good to understand the framework in which you are operating.

May 18, 2025 - "Tokenization’s trillion dollar promise: Wall Street leaders make their case to the SEC" 

December 15, 2025 - Updated—It Looks Like Depository Trust (DTCC) Is Getting Into Tokenization
Update below....

***** 

If I recall correctly, in the event of a major market dislocation, DTCC would be considered the actual owner of the assets, which would surprise quite a few people.

I should probably look it up.

UPDATE: it appears I mis-remembered. It is the creditors of a clearing company that end up with the asset. UCC:

(c )If a clearing corporation does not have sufficient financial assets to satisfy both its obligations to entitlement holders who have security entitlements with respect to a financial asset and its obligation to a creditor of the clearing corporation who has a security interest in that financial asset, the claim of the creditor has priority over the claims of entitlement holders.

—Uniform Commercial Code Law Section 8-511
Priority Among Security Interests and Entitlement Holders

As of the last balance sheet (March 31, 2025) net assets of DTCC were $4,460,400,000.

So if one of DTCCs Central Clearing Counterparties gets stuck guaranteeing a big fail, that's it, that's what the whole system rests upon.

I only bring this up because I can't get the image of an upside-down pyramid out of my head.

And we'll just pile more/faster on top (bottom). 

It's probably nothing to worry about. 

December 18, 2024 - U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Releases National Cyber Incident Response Plan Update

For now just a personal bookmark. Although I hope we won't have to, I fear we will be referring back to this post.

From CISA.gov....

*****

As a side note, if registering securities in certificate form is part of your risk mitigation strategy be prepared to pay $500 and more per cert. 

DTCC (DTC and Cede & Co.) strongly discourages use of the Direct Registration System.