SEC Greenlights DTCC’s Landmark Tokenized Securities Pilot

The U.S. securities industry crosses a historic threshold as the SEC grants DTCC's subsidiary DTC a No-Action Letter for blockchain-based settlement of tokenized stocks, ETFs, and Treasuries. This three-year pilot program—the culmination of four years of DTCC blockchain experiments—marks Wall Street's most significant step toward institutional adoption of distributed ledger technology.

By allowing pre-approved blockchains to interface with DTC's settlement system, the SEC effectively creates a regulatory sandbox for traditional finance to test real-world asset tokenization. The approval follows DTCC's strategic acquisition of Securrency in 2023 and builds on prior initiatives including Project Ion's DLT settlement tests and Project Whitney's money market fund tokenization experiments.

Market implications are profound: the pilot establishes legal precedent for blockchain-native securities while maintaining DTC's central role in clearance. This hybrid model—recording ownership on-chain while settling through regulated intermediaries—could accelerate institutional crypto adoption, particularly for compliant stablecoins and security tokens.