DTCC’s decision to connect its upcoming tokenized securities platform to the Stellar (XLM) network is the latest step in a relationship that dates back almost a decade, according to Denelle Dixon, CEO of the Stellar Development Foundation.
Earlier this week, DTCC said that tokenized assets held through its Depository Trust Company could be available on Stellar as early as the first half of 2027.
The move carries weight because DTCC is one of the largest utilities in the Wall Street market and oversees more than $114 trillion in assets. The Stellar integration is designed to support the issuance, settlement and lifecycle management of tokenized securities, while opening the door to future projects involving highly liquid assets, such as major indices and US Treasuries.
The roots of the partnership date back to Securrency, the institutional tokenization platform that DTCC acquired in 2023 and became what is now DTCC Digital Assets.
Securrency, Dixon told CoinDesk in an interview, worked closely with Stellar developers on the features that regulated financial institutions needed to issue assets on-chain, including recovery functionality, compliance checks, and transfer restrictions. Later, those tools were integrated directly into the network.
“Some of the team has been working with Stellar for a long time,” Dixon said.
The news came as tokenization has become one of the dominant themes in both crypto and traditional finance, attracting interest from global banks and asset managers looking to move traditional financial instruments onto blockchain rails.
Tokenization refers to the representation of assets such as US Treasuries, money market funds, stocks or private credit as digital tokens that can be issued, traded and settled on blockchains. Proponents argue that the technology could shorten settlement times, free up collateral trapped in legacy processes and eventually allow markets to operate 24 hours a day.
It’s potentially a huge market. Standard Chartered projected $2 trillion in tokenized assets by 2028, while BCG and Ripple predicted a market size of $18.9 trillion by 2033.
Franklin Templeton’s initial bet on Stellar
Dixon argued that tokenized assets are just the visible layer of a broader infrastructure change.
“Blockchain is great for books and records,” he said. “Tokenization is the result of the product, but it’s all of these underlying components that are really important.”
That focus on record-keeping was one of the reasons Franklin Templeton selected Stellar for its on-chain money market fund, BENJI. Dixon said the asset manager began exploring Stellar in 2019 and then launched the fund in 2021, with the goal of putting fund records on a single shared ledger rather than relying on multiple databases.
BENJI became one of the first examples of a regulated tokenized fund and helped pave the way for the current tokenized Treasury bond market, which has grown to approximately $15 billion with BlackRock, JPMorgan and Fidelity entering the ring.
Making public blockchains work for regulated finance
However, for institutions, moving assets on-chain requires more than faster settlement.
Regulated companies must comply with securities laws, sanctions requirements, and investor protection, creating demand for blockchain infrastructure that can support identity checks, transfer restrictions, and other compliance controls.
That need for compliance-ready infrastructure is one of the reasons Stellar’s long-standing relationship with Securrency proved valuable, Dixon said.
Stellar’s architecture allows issuers to add compliance, identity controls and privacy protections on top of an open network, he said. Asset issuers can decide whether transfers require know-your-customer (KYC) checks, whether assets can be frozen or recovered, and what transaction information remains visible.
“The base layer will always be open,” Dixon said. “Then the institution decides how compliance and privacy come into play.”
