The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), the back office that settles most U.S. securities trades, plans to start trading tokenized stocks, ETFs, and treasuries this month, with a broader launch in October. The entity protects more than $114 trillion in assets and over 50 firms have signed on, including BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan. The move represents a shift of core U.S. market infrastructure onto blockchain-based ledgers, the same shared ledger technology that underpins cryptocurrencies, following the July 2025 signing of the GENIUS Act that gave the U.S. its first federal framework for payment stablecoins.
Tokenization means recording a traditional asset – a stock, a bond, a dollar – as a digital token on a blockchain rather than in the private databases banks use today. The DTCC is moving the core machinery of U.S. markets, how securities are issued, settled, and held, onto those ledgers.
GENIUS Act Establishes Federal Stablecoin Framework With 2027 Implementation
The GENIUS Act, signed in July 2025, gave the U.S. its first federal framework for payment stablecoins. Both the Office of Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) issued proposed rules this year, and parts of the banking industry have asked the Treasury to slow down. Full implementation is expected in 2027 according to the law firm Morgan Lewis.
The market has moved regardless of the incomplete rulebook. Stablecoins hold more than $300 billion in outstanding value, according to a June 2026 BCG and Anchorage Digital report. Visa's stablecoin settlement volume hit $7 billion annual rate in April. Stripe paid $1.1 billion for the infrastructure firm Bridge. JPMorgan, Citi, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo plan a shared tokenized-deposit network to rival stablecoins, due in 2027.
BCG calls the moment an "inflection point" and "a structurally unique window in which incumbent banks can define their position."
Banking Industry Targets Four Tokenization Revenue Areas
The BCG report groups the opportunity for banks into four areas: trading, moving money, managing assets, issuing securities. Crypto brokerage and lending are the nearest-term revenue for banks. BCG estimates spot and derivatives trading alone generates $30-60 billion a year. U.S. regulators have opened the door further, with the OCC now letting banks custody crypto and execute client trades, and the FDIC permitting its supervised institutions to work in crypto under standard risk rules.
Tokenized money is most entangled with U.S. policy. Stablecoins can settle across borders in seconds, and the GENIUS Act requires them backed one-to-one by cash and short-term treasuries. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent calls them a way to "expand dollar access for billions across the globe" and spur "a surge in demand for U.S. Treasuries."
Tokenized funds and real-world assets represent the largest category. "Every stock, every bond, every fund, every asset, can be tokenized," BlackRock's Larry Fink wrote in 2025. Citi projects $5.5 trillion of tokenized securities by 2030, against approximately $12 billion today.
The Bank for International Settlements, in its 2025 annual report, argued stablecoins "perform poorly" against the tests money must pass and could threaten financial stability. A rush to redeem them could force fire sales of the very treasuries that back them. Specialists told CoinDesk the sector is "still at the start of its hype cycle."
Operational Adoption Remains Flat Despite Institutional Interest
Interest and spending don't yet match up. While EY found that 84% of institutions are using or interested in stablecoins, GlobalData reported operational adoption remained virtually flat through 2025, with about 40% running crypto in core operations.
Claudio González, CTO and EVP at intive, an AI-native software firm that builds financial products for banks and fintechs, sees the gap from the inside. "There's a gap between the conference-stage conversation and the budget line," he told International Business Times. "For most regulated institutions it's still exploratory rather than funded at scale."
What gets funded is less visible: fraud prevention, compliance, and core modernization. "You can't tokenize on top of a system you don't fully understand," González added.
COBOL Legacy Systems Present Core Infrastructure Challenge
Behind many "future of banking" headlines sits a core system written in COBOL, a language from 1959. By Reuters' estimate, about 43% of U.S. core banking systems still run on it, and roughly 95% of ATM transactions pass through it.
Replacing that code is slow and costly. Australia's Commonwealth Bank spent more than $1 billion AUD over five years to swap its core. That helps explain a shift among the banks that did build. JPMorgan's Kinexys unit now courts rivals onto its network, and most banks rent custody from specialists such as Anchorage and Fireblocks rather than build it themselves.
BCG argues most banks "are not likely to win by recreating the digital-asset stack in-house" and should act as "orchestrators" that integrate outside infrastructure.
For González, the harder problem is knowledge, not code. "Legacy itself isn't the real bottleneck, it's the lost knowledge around it," he said, pointing to business rules that survive only in undocumented systems and the memories of retiring engineers.
The near-term tests are already on the calendar: the DTCC's first tokenized trades are due this month, and the GENIUS Act's rules arrive in 2027. By requiring stablecoins to hold Treasuries, Washington has tied its digital-asset policy to the dollar's global standing.
FAQ
When does the DTCC plan to launch tokenized trading?
The DTCC plans to start trading tokenized stocks, ETFs, and treasuries this month, with a broader launch in October. The entity protects more than $114 trillion in assets and over 50 firms have signed on, including BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan.
What backing do stablecoins require under the GENIUS Act?
The GENIUS Act, signed in July 2025, requires stablecoins backed one-to-one by cash and short-term treasuries. Full implementation is expected in 2027 according to the law firm Morgan Lewis, though both the OCC and FDIC issued proposed rules this year.
How much of U.S. banking infrastructure still runs on COBOL?
By Reuters' estimate, about 43% of U.S. core banking systems still run on COBOL, a language from 1959, and roughly 95% of ATM transactions pass through it. Australia's Commonwealth Bank spent more than $1 billion AUD over five years to replace its COBOL-based core system.
