Digital Asset, alongside a powerful consortium of financial institutions including Bank of America, Citadel Securities, and DTCC, has announced the successful completion of what it calls a ground-breaking, fully on-chain financing transaction. The trade, executed on Tradeweb, involved the real-time financing of tokenised U.S. Treasuries (UST) against the USDC stablecoin on the Canton Network.
Conducted on a Saturday, the transaction demonstrated the ability to conduct repo-like activities outside of traditional market hours, a key step toward enabling 24/7 capital markets. According to the 12 August announcement, the use of a public blockchain for near-instant, atomic settlement marks a significant departure from previous on-chain repo activities, which often relied on off-ledger cash legs and were bound by conventional settlement windows.The working group, a who’s who of TradFi and digital asset leaders, includes Bank of America, Circle, Citadel Securities, Cumberland DRW, Digital Asset, DTCC, Hidden Road, Societe Generale, Tradeweb, and Virtu Financial.
“We’re done talking theory when it comes to blockchain for capital markets — over a weekend, real-time, on-chain financing of tokenized US treasuries against USDC has been executed,” stated Chris Zuehlke, Partner at DRW and Global Co-Head of Cumberland. “This lays the foundation for how blockchain is unlocking 24/7 funding.”
Key to the transaction was the tokenisation of U.S. Treasuries held in a custodied account at The Depository Trust Company (DTC), a DTCC subsidiary. These tokenised assets were then used as collateral on the Canton Network, with USDC minted on-chain to serve as the cash leg, enabling true atomic settlement.
Justin Peterson, Chief Technology Officer at Tradeweb, commented: “Tradeweb’s deep U.S. Treasury liquidity and electronic execution capabilities, combined with the Canton Network’s interoperable and decentralized framework, enabled this trade to happen outside of traditional settlement windows. It’s an industry first and reflects the power of collaboration.”
This milestone is the latest in a series of strategic moves by Digital Asset to build out the Canton Network’s ecosystem. The network, originally developed by Digital Asset and now open-sourced, is a purpose-built institutional blockchain aiming to solve for the secure interoperability of financial assets. Recent initiatives have seen the network expand its on-chain collateral capabilities by adding leading liquidity providers and partnering to innovate in areas like crypto derivatives collateral management.
The successful trade also underscores the industry’s growing commitment to exploring distributed ledger technology for core market functions. “This milestone underscores DTCC’s commitment to advancing infrastructure that meets the market and the moment,” said Brian Steele, Managing Director, President, Clearing & Securities Services at DTCC.
For Digital Asset, this represents a significant proof point, validating the technology and the collaborative, cross-industry approach it has championed. The firm has been actively building momentum, including a partnership with Euroclear on a tokenised collateral mobility initiative.
Kelly Mathieson, Chief Business Development Officer at Digital Asset, described the transaction as a “foundational step in building the Global Collateral Network on the Canton Network,” which she said, “lays the groundwork for a fundamentally more efficient and accessible global financial system.”
The group noted that additional transactions are planned for later this year as they move to expand on this foundational capability.
Subscribe to our newsletter
