The Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC), the backbone of U.S. capital markets infrastructure, is collaborating with multiple layer-1 blockchain networks to transition critical post-trade functions on-chain. Speaking at the Consensus 2026 conference in Miami, DTCC CEO Frank La Salla revealed that the firm is working with "very good L1s" to improve the processing of dividend payments, tender offers, and other corporate actions in tokenized markets.
La Salla emphasized the sheer scale of DTCC's operations: the organization processes millions of dividend payments daily and handles roughly $20 trillion in Treasury and corporate securities trades each day. "We need high-performance L1s to do that," he said, noting that most current blockchains would take days to handle such volumes. The DTCC seeks networks that provide high throughput, resiliency, and security to match the performance of existing centralized systems.
The move is part of a broader push to modernize market infrastructure with blockchain technology. DTCC recently announced plans to begin testing its tokenized securities platform in July, with a wider rollout slated for October. La Salla highlighted collateral movement as a potential first large-scale institutional use case: tokenized collateral could allow firms outside U.S. market hours to access liquidity in real time—for example, an Asian firm posting USD tokenized collateral on a Sunday in New York.
While the potential is "incredibly powerful," the CEO cautioned that blockchain systems still face hurdles around scalability, liquidity fragmentation, and risk management. One specific challenge is netting transactions, where traditional infrastructure compresses massive trading activity into smaller settlement obligations. La Salla acknowledged that blockchain's decentralized nature makes such efficiency gains more complex, as they often rely on concentrated liquidity.
DTCC has explored blockchain for nearly a decade, but the technology only became commercially meaningful in recent years with the emergence of real-world use cases. The partnership with layer-1 blockchains—rather than building a proprietary system—signals a strategic bet on existing decentralized networks, potentially accelerating the tokenization of traditional securities and setting a precedent for other market infrastructure players.
