DTCC-led pilot puts regulatory weight behind $8.4bn tokenised equity surge

Tokenised stock transfers doubled to $8.41 billion over the past month, a 105% rise that coincides with the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation drawing more than 50 financial institutions into a working group on on-chain equity settlement, according to RWA.xyz data cited in market reports. The surge marks a shift from isolated retail experiments towards infrastructure being tested by regulated market plumbing, with DTCC pilots slated to precede an October 2026 launch.

The scale of activity suggests tokenised equities are moving beyond niche crypto-native products. Distributed value across the sector climbed 43% to $2.16 billion, while the number of holders rose 17% to more than 409,000, indicating growth driven by both higher transaction volumes and broader participation rather than concentrated trading alone.

DTCC’s working group signals regulatory pathway

DTCC said it has brought together an industry working group of more than 50 firms to shape the development of its tokenisation service, building on a no-action letter issued by the US Securities and Exchange Commission in December 2025. That letter covers tokenisation of a defined set of highly liquid, DTC-custodied assets, including Russell 1000 constituent stocks, major index-tracking exchange-traded funds, and US Treasury bills, notes and bonds.

The service is expected to operate under a three-year framework, allowing DTC participants to trial tokenised record-keeping and transfers on approved blockchain networks while existing custody controls remain in place. For an audience of institutional investors, the involvement of a central securities depository lends a regulatory legitimacy to tokenised equities that purely crypto-native platforms have struggled to match.

Platform data shows uneven but broad-based growth

Among individual platforms, Figure recorded the fastest expansion, with distributed value rising 935% over 30 days, according to the RWA.xyz figures. Securitize grew 332% over the same period, while xStocks gained roughly 62%.

Ondo remained the largest tokenised stock platform by distributed value, at approximately $846 million, ahead of xStocks at around $708 million. Securitize held about $306 million and Figure about $239 million, underlining that despite rapid percentage gains at newer entrants, incumbent platforms still command the bulk of on-chain equity value.

Exchanges compete for tokenised equity infrastructure

The rise in transfer activity has been reinforced by exchange-led product launches. Kraken, Bybit and Bitget Wallet each used xStocks infrastructure during the SpaceX tokenised-stock cycle, offering users exposure to pre-IPO shares via blockchain rails, with demand reportedly exceeding available allocation.

Securitize has also extended into public-market tokenisation, issuing tokenised versions of its own shares on the Solana and Avalanche networks following its listing on the New York Stock Exchange. Taken together, the DTCC pilot and the competing exchange offerings suggest that both regulated market infrastructure providers and crypto-native platforms are now positioning to capture a growing share of tokenised equity trading, rather than treating it as a peripheral experiment.

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