DTCC Throws Weight Behind Interoperability Framework for Tokenized Markets
Wall Street's back-office giant just picked a side in the tokenization wars—and it's betting on bridges, not walls.
The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, the $60-trillion plumbing beneath traditional finance, is officially backing an interoperability-first approach for the burgeoning world of tokenized assets. This isn't just a nod from the sidelines; it's the market's essential settlement utility signaling how the future will be wired.
Why Interoperability is the New Mandate
Forget closed gardens and proprietary chains. The DTCC's stance cuts through the hype: true scale requires assets and data to flow freely across different ledgers and networks. Their endorsed framework bypasses technological tribalism, focusing on common standards that let tokenized stocks, bonds, and funds move without friction.
Think of it as the financial world adopting a universal power plug after decades of proprietary chargers. It’s the foundational step that turns experimental projects into a global, liquid market.
The Silent Revolution in the Engine Room
This move isn't happening on the flashy trading floors. It's in the unsexy back-office—clearing, settlement, and custody—where the DTCC reigns. By defining how digital assets are tracked and transferred between institutions, they're building the rails the entire train will run on. Active development is already underway, with pilot programs testing real-world settlement cycles slashed from days to minutes.
It’s a quiet, technical masterstroke that does more for institutional adoption than any celebrity crypto endorsement ever could.
The Bottom Line: A Call for Pragmatism
The message to banks, asset managers, and blockchain developers is clear: build for connection, not captivity. The DTCC's endorsement provides the cover major players need to dive into tokenization without betting on a single, losing technology.
One cynical finance jab? It's the ultimate 'move slow and fix things' approach—a painfully sensible, infrastructure-heavy plan that will probably work precisely because it avoids the get-rich-quick schemes the sector is known for. The future of finance is being built by the people who've always kept the lights on, just with a new set of tools.
DTCC expands tokenized securities across multiple blockchains
Chakar confirmed that DTCC is dedicated to collaborating with the institutional finance and digital assets sector on interoperability. However, her remarks highlighted the careful approach the incumbent is adopting as it enters a market where North Korea has stolen billions of dollars through sophisticated cyberattacks.
To successfully tokenize digital assets, DTCC signaled last month that it will partner with Canton Network, a permissioned blockchain designed specifically for institutions.
The firm’s managing director, Brian Steele, explained that the decision to partner with Canton Network was in response to Wall Street’s operational demands by providing after-hours financing and enhancing market makers’ liquidity.
According to Steele, each blockchain will likely have distinct features and an environment that make it suitable for its intended use. However, Steele noted that DTCC will use evaluation criteria for future expansions, including security and resilience, while also taking customer demand into account.
“DTCC’s partnership with Digital Asset and the Canton Network is a strategic step forward as we collaborate across the industry to build a digital infrastructure that seamlessly bridges the traditional and digital financial ecosystems and provides unmatched scalability and safety.”
–Frank La Salla, CEO of DTCC.
Frank further claimed that the partnership develops a path for bringing real-world, high-value tokenization use cases to market, beginning with U.S. Treasury securities and eventually extending to a wide range of DTC-eligible assets across network providers.
However, several crypto-natives criticized the concept. Carlos Domingo, CEO of Securitize, a digital asset securities company funded by BlackRock, cast doubt on the tokens’ status as representations of protected assets rather than “native” to the network. In response, DTCC reiterated that its top objective is to allow customers to select from a variety of blockchains, as long as they adhere to strict security and institutional resiliency standards.
Apart from Canton, DTCC announced it intends to provide tokenized securities on “AppChain,” an open-source, permissioned network for apps that is compatible with Ethereum.
SEC approves DTCC’s expanded ACS Triparty clearing service
While DTCC advances its tokenized securities strategy on multiple blockchains, the firm is simultaneously expanding its traditional clearing services.
On January 7, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) authorized DTCC to offer the ACS Triparty Service as part of its current Fixed Income Clearing Corporation (FICC) Agent Clearing Service (ACS) offering. This action marked another phase in the organization’s efforts to optimize both traditional and digital financial infrastructure.
The U.S. securities settlement firm revealed that FICC filed a regulation with the SEC to provide the ACS Triparty Service in September 2025.
The company said that, with SEC approval, FICC is now able to provide Agent Clearing Members and their Executing Firm Customers with a Triparty Agent Clearing Service. In particular, DTCC stated that FICC’s Agent Clearing Members will be able to submit for clearing eligible triparty repo transactions between their Executing Firm Customers and either the Agent Clearing Member (“done-with”) or another Government Securities Division (GSD) Netting Member.
FICC will use BNY’s global collateral infrastructure to provide the ACS Triparty Service in order to facilitate both “done-with” and “done-away” cleared triparty repo trades, according to the U.S. securities settlement firm.
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