The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a landmark “no-action” letter to the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) in late December 2025.
This regulatory breakthrough officially permits the use of approved public and private blockchains for the settlement and record-keeping of tokenized entitlements to traditional securities.
The letter covers a vast array of assets held by the DTCC, including Russell 1000 equities, major ETFs, and U.S. Treasuries. By allowing these assets to be represented as on-chain tokens, the SEC has effectively green-lit a transition to T+0 (near-instant) settlement, removing the multi-day friction that has plagued legacy finance for decades.
Real-world asset (RWA) tokenization has already surged to a valuation of $19 billion in 2025. With this new regulatory clarity, analysts expect a flood of institutional capital to enter the space, potentially pushing the sector toward $100 billion by late 2026.
For major banks and hedge funds, this move allows for unprecedented collateral velocity. Institutions can now move tokenized versions of equities and Treasuries across decentralized protocols with the same ease as stablecoins, while remaining fully compliant with federal securities laws.
This development is being hailed as the “missing piece” of the institutional DeFi puzzle, finally merging the legal protections of traditional finance with the efficiency of the blockchain.
