Bank Blockchain Settlement: What's Live in 2026

Updated October 2026. First published February 2024.

In February 2024, this post said the year would be "a watershed moment for blockchain in banking," and it described the repeal of SAB 121 as a proposal still pending. Two and a half years on, there's a record to check. One blockchain repo platform now processes more than $350 billion a day, and JPMorgan's blockchain platform averages $7 billion. DTC has SEC staff relief to tokenize security entitlements. A lot of the rest is still pilots. Here's what's live, with the numbers the firms themselves publish.

Where the Volume Is: Repo and Payments

Broadridge's Distributed Ledger Repo platform is the largest by the numbers. Broadridge reported an average of $359 billion a day in repo transactions in September 2026, and $7.5 trillion for the month. Growth has slowed: Broadridge put year-over-year growth in daily volume at 492% for October 2025 and 28% for July 2026.

JPMorgan's blockchain unit, renamed from Onyx to Kinexys in November 2024, said on October 19, 2026 that the platform had processed more than $4 trillion since inception and averages $7 billion a day. That figure covers the whole platform, not one product. The bank's dollar deposit token, JPM Coin (ticker JPMD), started as a proof of concept on Base, a public Ethereum layer-2 network, in June 2025. JPMorgan calls JPMD a permissioned USD deposit token. It made the token available to institutional clients on November 12, 2025, and brought it to Ethereum in October 2026.

Tokenized Bonds, Funds, and Collateral

Goldman Sachs' GS DAP platform handled the European Investment Bank's €100 million two-year digital bond in November 2022, issued and settled on a private blockchain, and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority's HK$800 million tokenized green bond in February 2023, which settled T+1.
On July 23, 2025, BNY and Goldman Sachs launched tokenized money market fund shares. The tokens are mirror records created on GS DAP. BNY keeps the official books and records for the funds. The first fund managers were BlackRock, BNY Investments Dreyfus, Federated Hermes, Fidelity Investments, and Goldman Sachs Asset Management.
On October 13, 2026, BNY said it completed a triparty repo with Citadel Securities using a tokenized U.S. Treasury on its private ledger. It was one overnight transaction, and BNY didn't disclose the amount.

DTC's Tokenization Pilot

For U.S. broker-dealers, this is the development to follow. On December 11, 2025, SEC staff in the Division of Trading and Markets issued a no-action letter for a DTC pilot. Under it:

DTC participants can elect to have their security entitlements to DTC-held securities recorded using distributed ledger technology.
Eligible securities are Russell 1000 stocks, Treasury bills, notes, and bonds, and ETFs that track major indices.
The securities stay registered in the name of Cede & Co.
DTC won't give the tokenized entitlements any collateral or settlement value.
The ledger record is DTC's official books and records for the tokenized entitlements.
The relief ends three years after DTC launches the pilot.

DTCC ran production trades on July 15, 2026, with more than 30 firms, on its private network and on the public Canton Network. In May 2026, it said it planned to launch the service in October 2026.

Trading is being set up to match. On March 18, 2026, the SEC approved a Nasdaq rule that lets a tokenized share trade on the same order book and with the same priority as the traditional share, but only if it is fungible with it and carries the same CUSIP, symbol, and rights. Settlement runs through the DTC pilot, and if DTC can't tokenize a trade, it settles in traditional form.

What Changed for Banks

The bank regulators reversed their 2021 to 2023 crypto guidance in 2025:

The OCC's Interpretive Letter 1183, on March 7, 2025, confirmed that crypto custody, certain stablecoin activities, and participation in distributed ledger networks are permissible for the banks it supervises, and dropped the requirement to get supervisory nonobjection first. Interpretive Letter 1184, on May 7, 2025, said banks can buy and sell assets held in custody at the customer's direction and outsource custody and execution to third parties.
The FDIC said on March 28, 2025 that its banks may engage in permissible crypto activities without prior approval.
The Federal Reserve withdrew its advance-notice expectation on April 24, 2025, and ended its novel activities supervision program on August 15, 2025.

SAB 121, the SEC staff guidance that required firms safeguarding crypto for platform users to record a liability for that obligation, was rescinded by SAB 122 on January 23, 2025. It was rescinded by SEC staff, not by legislation. The SEC's broader shift on crypto is in our post on how the SEC's approach changed after 2025.

Not Every Project Ships

The Australian Securities Exchange is the reminder. In November 2022, ASX paused its blockchain-based replacement for CHESS, its clearing and settlement system, and wrote off A$245 million to A$255 million before tax. An Accenture review had found the application 63% complete. A year later, ASX chose a product-based system, TCS BaNCS, that can connect to distributed ledgers if needed.

What to Ask Before Your Firm Takes Part

Look at where the official record sits in each live example. BNY keeps the fund's books. DTC's tokenized entitlements are entitlements to securities still registered to Cede & Co., and the pilot gives them no collateral or settlement value. The token changes how a position is recorded and moved. Your stock record, your reconciliations, and your quarterly securities count still have to show where each position is. If your firm joins the DTC pilot, ask how tokenized entitlements will appear in your DTC position reports and your books before the first one arrives.

This post is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. For guidance on specific regulatory obligations, consult your counsel or compliance advisor.