The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) has teamed up with Digital Asset and the Canton Network to bring tokenized U.S. Treasury securities to blockchain.
Key Takeaways
- DTCC will tokenize a subset of U.S. Treasury securities held at The Depository Trust Company (DTC) using the Canton Network.
- The initiative follows SEC approval, with DTCC receiving a No-Action Letter to operate a tokenization service.
- A minimum viable product (MVP) is planned for the first half of 2026, with scalability based on client demand.
- DTCC will join the Canton Network’s governance body, taking a leadership role alongside Euroclear.
What Happened?
DTCC, the leading U.S. post-trade market infrastructure firm, has partnered with Digital Asset Holdings and the privacy-focused Canton Network to begin tokenizing U.S. Treasury securities custodied at DTC. This marks DTCC’s first move toward bringing traditional financial instruments on-chain. The effort is supported by recent regulatory clearance from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Minting and using U.S. Treasuries on Canton is coming in 2026, enabling tokenized USTs to be exchanged in near-real-time with stablecoins and other digital assets – all with the privacy and controls regulated markets demand.
— Canton Network (@CantonNetwork) December 17, 2025
A major unlock for global collateral mobility to… pic.twitter.com/XnvdprRq7X
A Strategic Shift to Blockchain
This partnership represents a significant step in bridging traditional finance with blockchain technology. DTCC said it will use its ComposerX suite of platforms to enable the tokenization process, ensuring interoperability across existing market infrastructures. The initiative is designed to maintain compliance with regulatory standards while testing blockchain-based workflows in a controlled setting.
DTCC, Digital Asset, and the Canton Network are aiming to deliver a minimum viable product (MVP) by mid-2026, with real-world Treasury securities minted on the Canton Network. Future phases will expand the project depending on participant interest and evolving market needs.
According to DTCC CEO Frank LaSalla, this collaboration “creates a roadmap to bring real-world, high-value tokenization use cases to market,” starting with U.S. Treasury securities and potentially expanding to other DTC-eligible assets.
Industry-Backed Blockchain
The Canton Network is a privacy-preserving distributed ledger purpose-built for institutions to issue and trade tokenized real-world assets such as bonds, loans, and funds. Digital Asset, the firm behind the Canton Network, is supported by major Wall Street players including BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, Nasdaq, Citadel Securities, and S&P Global.
Yuval Rooz, Co-Founder and CEO of Digital Asset, praised the partnership’s ambition, stating:
The move also places DTCC in a governance leadership role within the Canton Network, where it will co-chair the Canton Foundation alongside Euroclear. This governance role will allow DTCC to help shape industry standards for decentralized financial infrastructure.
A Regulated, Scalable Tokenization Roadmap
DTCC emphasized that the SEC’s No-Action Letter was key to launching the tokenization program. This regulatory clarity allows the firm to experiment with blockchain strategies while aligning with market safeguards.
Brian Steele, President of Clearing & Securities Services at DTCC, said the goal is to let market participants benefit from enhanced liquidity, operational efficiency, and transparency. He noted that the project builds on DTCC’s earlier collateral mobility experiments and is part of a broader strategy to establish a secure, transparent digital asset ecosystem.
Tokenized securities are expected to improve capital efficiency, reduce operational risk, and streamline processes across financial institutions. These benefits could be particularly valuable for major market makers and hedge funds managing large portfolios of U.S. Treasuries.
CoinLaw’s Takeaway
I think this is one of the most important steps we’ve seen toward real-world asset tokenization from a legacy institution like DTCC. In my experience watching blockchain adoption in finance, it’s rare to see this level of alignment between tech providers, regulators, and traditional custodians. The fact that DTCC is not just experimenting, but actively co-chairing the governance of the Canton Network, shows they’re serious about reshaping how capital markets operate. I found it especially telling that they’re focusing on U.S. Treasuries first. If they can make that work on-chain, it opens the door for everything else.
