The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) has partnered with the Stellar Development Foundation to bring tokenized versions of traditional securities to the Stellar public blockchain, with the first live assets expected in the first half of 2027. This marks one of the most concrete steps yet by a major U.S. market infrastructure provider into on-chain settlement.
The collaboration will initially focus on highly liquid, benchmark assets already cleared through DTCC’s Depository Trust Company (DTC), including Russell 1000 constituent stocks, major index ETFs, U.S. Treasury securities, and a range of corporate and other bonds. These tokenized instruments will remain within DTCC’s regulatory perimeter, with custodial records and beneficial ownership tracked to meet securities laws, while leveraging Stellar’s ledger for near-real-time settlement, programmable transfer rules, and composability with decentralized applications.
The effort follows a no-action letter from the SEC in December 2025 that granted DTCC the regulatory comfort to experiment with real-world asset tokenization under specific conditions, rather than waiting for formal rulemaking. DTCC has already signaled a broader “multi-chain” strategy, with plans to connect to multiple layer-1 and layer-2 networks. Frank La Salla, DTCC’s President and CEO, said the move “represents another step forward in DTCC’s efforts to build an open, interoperable digital infrastructure that bridges traditional and digital markets.”
The news drove the native Stellar token (XLM) up by as much as 3% before paring gains; it remained up 1.7% over 24 hours, outperforming the broader crypto market. The partnership aligns with a wider Wall Street trend: Nasdaq is building blockchain-based share infrastructure with Kraken’s parent, and Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) is backing tokenized securities via OKX. With DTCC overseeing over $114 trillion in assets, this integration signals that major market utilities see public blockchains as viable settlement rails for core capital markets.
