The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, the backbone of virtually every stock trade in America, is about to do something it has never done in its five-decade history. It’s preparing to put real securities on a blockchain.
DTCC received a No-Action Letter from the SEC on December 11, 2025, greenlighting a three-year pilot program for tokenizing securities held at The Depository Trust Company. Limited production trades are targeted for July 2026, with a broader launch slated for October 2026.
What DTCC is actually building
DTC, its depository subsidiary, custodies over $114 trillion in securities. The pilot will cover select assets from the Russell 1000, major-index ETFs, and US Treasuries.
These tokenized entitlements will mirror the traditional legal and ownership rights of existing book-entry holdings. So if you own a tokenized share of an S&P 500 ETF through this system, your legal protections remain identical to what you’d have with a conventional holding.
