Morgan Stanley said on Nov. 3, 2026, that it had joined the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation’s new tokenization service for U.S. equities and U.S. Treasuries, making it one of the first banks to participate. The service is intended to improve liquidity, collateral mobility and capital efficiency by creating tokenized representations of securities held in Depository Trust Company custody.

The bank disclosed its participation in an X post. Morgan Stanley said integrating tokenization with established market infrastructure would provide a foundation for expanding its digital-asset capabilities.

DTCC tokenization service

The DTCC Tokenization Service, or DTS, launched on Oct. 28. Morgan Stanley’s head of digital asset strategy, Amy Oldenburg, said the service allows traditional securities, including U.S. equities and U.S. Treasuries held in DTC custody, to be converted into tokenized form.

The service is expected to make such assets easier to use in financial transactions. According to Morgan Stanley, tokenization may increase securities liquidity, simplify the movement of assets used as collateral and enable more efficient use of capital.

The initiative follows Morgan Stanley’s earlier plans for tokenized financial instruments. The bank previously said it intended to support tokenized stocks on its own alternative trading system in the first quarter of 2027.

Oldenburg said that timetable was more realistic than an earlier forecast for a launch in the second half of 2026. She has also estimated that the market for tokenized real-world assets could reach between $3 trillion and $10 trillion by 2030. Morgan Stanley is testing blockchain technology for potential future financial products.

Other approaches and issuer objections

Other financial-sector participants view tokenization as more than a way to accelerate settlement or enable round-the-clock trading. New York Life Investment Management has said its main potential lies in creating personalized investment portfolios at industrial scale.

Thomas Say, head of the firm’s multi-asset solutions unit, said that approach could make individualized investment strategies accessible to a broader range of clients.

The development of tokenized stocks has also prompted disputes over issuers’ rights. By late October, the number of companies objecting to the trading of tokenized versions of their shares on the OKXICE platform had risen to 50. The companies included Nvidia, Nike, Costco and Reddit.

OKXICE is a joint project of cryptocurrency exchange OKX and Intercontinental Exchange, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange.

Source: Incrypted