Wall Street’s Plumbing Goes Onchain as Morgan Stanley Tokenizes Securities

In brief

• Morgan Stanley said it’s among the first banks to tokenize U.S. equities and Treasuries through the DTCC Tokenization Service, which launched Oct. 28.
• The service converts DTC-held securities into tokenized “digital twins” with the same rights as the originals, running on the Canton Network and DTCC’s private Besu network.
• Twenty firms have signed on so far, including Bank of America, Citi and J.P. Morgan.

Morgan Stanley has started moving U.S. stocks and Treasuries onto blockchain rails, using Wall Street’s own plumbing to do it.

The bank said Tuesday that it’s among the first to tokenize real-world assets through the DTCC Tokenization Service, converting U.S. equities and Treasuries into tokenized form.

The service, which went live Oct. 28, is run by the Depository Trust Co., a subsidiary of the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. The DTC is the post-trade backbone of U.S. markets, with more than $114 trillion in assets under custody.

“The hands-on experience of integrating tokenized securities with established market infrastructure will inform the continued development of the firm’s digital asset capabilities as the market evolves,” said Amy Oldenburg, Morgan Stanley’s head of digital assets strategy.