Morgan Stanley announced Nov. 4 it has begun tokenizing U.S. equities and Treasury securities on the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation's (DTCC) Tokenization Service (DTS), which launched Oct. 28.
The DTS provides infrastructure for institutions to issue and manage digital representations of assets held in custody by the Depository Trust Company (DTC). The platform connects traditional settlement systems directly to programmable blockchain networks—a critical step for moving real-world assets (RWAs) onto on-chain rails.
The system targets three core objectives: enhancing asset liquidity, boosting collateral mobility and reducing operational overhead. By cutting settlement friction, institutions can optimize capital deployment across trading operations and map highly regulated financial assets onto distributed ledger networks.
DTS initially connects to the Canton Network and utilizes DTCC's private Besu blockchain. Morgan Stanley is now creating tokenized representations of both equities and Treasuries through this hybrid infrastructure.
Amy Oldenburg, head of digital assets strategy at Morgan Stanley, said: "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."
