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Digital Asset Innovation at DTCC

INNOVATION AND EXPERIMENTATION AT SCALE — WITH THE INDUSTRY, FOR THE INDUSTRY

Strategic Overview

The financial services industry is at a critical juncture, with macroeconomic pressures, cyber threats, geopolitical uncertainty, and the pace of regulatory change placing increased demands on organizations. At the same time, many firms are on modernization journeys, assessing how technology and digitization can further reduce risks and costs, increase efficiency, improve resiliency, and deliver new value to remain competitive and achieve optimum performance.

As firms look to the future and embrace increased levels of digitization, tokenization and digital assets have generated significant interest.

DTCC has been exploring blockchain and digitization for many years and has successfully tested DLT’s foundational capabilities and how the technology could deliver new benefits across the securities lifecycle from issuance through settlement, across asset classes. In addition, we have experimented with several DLT platforms, and tested the scalability of the technology – all key enablers to the future.

DTCC's Testnet


A DLT Network for Industry Collaboration

DTCC’s Testnet is a private, permissioned DLT ecosystem governed by DTCC, designed to encourage collaboration across the digital asset securities space. It enables experimentation at scale by providing a common environment for both DTCC and our clients to execute a series of pilots in support of capability advancement, industry business case development, standards alignment and interoperability.

Experimentation at Scale at DTCC

Over the next 15 years, digital assets are forecasted to grow in value to around $16 trillion. As we look to the future, DTCC will continue our experimentation in blockchain technology to support our clients and unlock this market by launching Testnet, enabling the industry to transition pilots from R&D to production and facilitating interoperability across blockchains.

 

A Timeline of Initiatives That Support
DTCC’s Digital Asset Program

2016 White Paper

Distributed Ledgers
Improve the Post
Trade Landscape


2017 Milestone

Issuance &
Registration
Use Case
Assessment


2018 Milestone

Future of
U.S. Cash
Equities
Scenario Planning

Milestone

Tech Performance
& Scalability
Assessment

Milestone

Crypto Asset
Opportunity
Assessment


2019 Milestone

Crypto Custody
POC

White Paper

DLT Security
Framework for
the Financial
Services Industry

White Paper

Post-Trade
Processing of
Tokenized
Securities


2020 White Paper

DLT Governance
for Private
Permissioned
Networks

White Paper

Project ION POC:
Public Markets
Tokenization

White Paper

Project Whitney
Case Study

White Paper

Project Whitney
Prototype: Private
Markets Tokenization

Milestone

DLT Governance
for Private
Permission Networks


2021 Milestone

Established DevX
Environment

Milestone

Project ION
Prototype

2022
Milestone

Digital Vault
Opportunity
Assessment

White Paper

Project Lithium:
Securities
Settlement Pilot

2023
Milestone

DTCC’s Testnet
Launch

Milestone

Planned Industry
Pilots

White Paper

Advancing the
Digital Asset Era,
Together

Click the White Paper Icons White PaperFor More Information

Legend: Milestone White Paper

News & Current Events

Digital Asset Synergies in the U.S. Post-Trade Life Cycle

DTCC has successfully explored DLT’s foundational capabilities from issuance to settlement, experimented with several DLT platforms, and tested the scalability of the technology.

dtccdotcom