Tokenized Treasuries: 2025's Pilot Programs vs. 2026's DTCC Production Testing
In 2025, tokenized Treasuries were one of the hops on the side. The institution that clears almost all US securities trades put them into live production in July 2026.
The tokenized US Treasuries have increased from approximately $9.6 billion at the end of 2025 to over $15 billion by mid-2026, per market trackers. The leaders are BlackRock's BUIDL, Circle's USYC, Ondo Finance, and Franklin Templeton's BENJI, all of which offer daily yields of 3-5%.
DTCC's more significant structural change was the bigger offer. On July 15, 2026, DTCC processed its first live production trades of tokenized stocks, ETFs and Treasuries with over 40 issuers including BlackRock and JPMorgan. A full commercial launch is scheduled for October 2026.
This is a significant change from what was seen in the pilots done in 2025. These were mostly crypto-native products (BUIDL, USDY, USYC) that had been issued and settled on new market infrastructure.
DTCC's solution will, instead, utilize a new on-chain representation for existing securities held by DTCs and integrate it into the plumbing that already handles $4.7 quadrillion in transactions each year.
The benefit is that it speeds up the settlement of the contract. The settlement cycle for Legacy Treasury is T+1. DTCC's tokenized rails are designed to facilitate the movement of collateral within seconds, rather than a trading day, potentially freeing up capital for use in meeting margin calls.
It also relies on a three-year SEC no-action letter that was issued in the end of 2025, which provides regulatory flexibility for DTCC to deploy post-trade services using blockchain without having to await a new rulemaking process for each asset class the company introduces.
Based on several industry trackers, the tokenized RWA sector as a whole is expected to reach $50 billion by the end of 2026, and Treasuries will be no exception to this trend if it continues.
Is the institutional adoption of plumbing, such as DTCC's crypto adoption, more significant than another retail product launch? What's your take?
This is not financial advice.
