00:00Talk a little bit about how this partnership came about. Who approached who?
00:05Well, thank you. It's such a pleasure to be here again.
00:07You know, we've been working with folks that are now at DTCC for many, many years.
00:13So the Securrency was an organization that was acquired by DTCC.
00:19And Securrency had been in our ecosystem since probably 2018.
00:23And so they had actually helped to build the clawback functionality, the freeze functionality,
00:28all of these components that are really important from a compliance standpoint.
00:31So we've known the team for a long time.
00:33And when they got to the place that they were actually thinking about this, we had been in conversation.
00:38And so it was just a very easy outcome from there.
00:42This is a huge validation for a public blockchain can get from TradFi.
00:47We're talking $114 trillion in assets on Stellar as the first public chain for tokenized Russell 1000 stocks, ETFs and
00:54UST.
00:55I'm wondering, though, and we're talking about the plumbing here.
00:58So we're getting a little like, you know, a little detailed.
01:02Is Stellar the actual settlement layer or is it like a display window for assets that still live at DTCC?
01:08What can you tell us about that?
01:10Well, the native issuance is a really important component of it.
01:12And so using this for their books and records is a really important piece of it.
01:16So very similar.
01:17I know that you had Jenny Johnson on earlier, really thinking through how you can use this tech stack for
01:22its benefit.
01:23And the benefit is you can use it for the books and records and then you can build products on
01:27top of it, like money market funds, like any of the assets that are going to be issued from using
01:33the DTCC tokenization platform.
01:36And our understanding, as we mentioned earlier, is that your integration will not be completed until the first half of
01:422027.
01:43So you still have a year to go.
01:45Canton, which is a permission chain, is already inside DTCC's architecture.
01:48So I guess one could question why should Wall Street wait for Stellar when a permissioned alternative is already live?
01:57Oh, well, it's not live yet.
01:59But, yes, I see you're saying it's going to be live on Testnet.
02:01I think it's really important for open public blockchains to be the alternative that is chosen.
02:07When you think about what happens with an open public blockchain is that there are people all over the world,
02:12just like the folks at Securancy, who were building the technology and bringing ideas and making it better constantly.
02:18That's one component of it.
02:20The fact that the validators, that anyone can come to validate on the network and you have to define who
02:25you are so that people can trust you, that's another component.
02:28Working in the open is always beneficial when it comes to financial technology.
02:32If we don't have open public networks that are actually chosen to do this, we're going to end up with
02:38closed financial infrastructure, just like we have right now, that's not going to change, that's not going to grow, that's
02:44not going to benefit from all of the collaboration globally.
02:47So I think that what we're seeing is it's a step change.
02:50When you think about they are choosing to move to open, which I think is a really, really important piece
02:55of it.
02:56And that's something that we think is important.
02:58Well, to follow on that, does the public versus permission distinction actually matter to an institutional investor who just wants
03:06faster settlement?
03:07Well, I think it should matter because of distribution, because you have distribution globally on an open public network.
03:14You also have others that can.
03:15So much of what these asset issuers are looking for is the ability to distribute to different parts of the
03:20world, to use their tools, to use their products in collateral, to be able to think about all of the
03:24different components that they can build upon.
03:26They have these assets already in traditional finance right now.
03:30But to be able to leverage the speed, the transparency and the openness of a blockchain to be able to
03:36do that, yes, open public infrastructure is the better outcome.
03:40I think about the numbers involved here.
03:41The DTCC custody is $114 trillion in assets on Stellar.
03:46I mean, that's just massive.
03:48Talk a little bit about the real-world assets on Stellar and what that growth trajectory has looked like and
03:54how you see it developing.
03:56Oh, it's been pretty remarkable.
03:58I mean, I just love the fact that we get regulatory clarity and then regulatory clarity opens up markets.
04:03In December of 2025, we hit a billion in real-world assets on Stellar.
04:08In just yesterday, June 1st, we're up to $3 billion.
04:12So think about that growth, 3x, in just the last few months.
04:15That's an important indication of where this industry is headed.
04:19And tokenizing just to tokenize is not beneficial.
04:22You tokenize because it is best for the fund, because it brings the costs down for the fund,
04:26which ultimately benefits the retail users or the SMEs on the edge or the institutions that are actually holding that
04:32fund.
04:32And then it is that ease of settlement and that ability to constantly do new things.
04:37When you think about what happened with respect to Franklin Templeton and what they've done with their money market fund
04:42on Stellar,
04:43they're now able to pay you interest for every minute that you're in the fund.
04:49That is something that could happen only with this kind of technology.
04:52So when I see the real-world assets already increase 3x in just the last four months, it's a pretty
04:58remarkable shift.
05:00You know, I want to go back to Scarlett's question that she opened with about the partnership coming together.
05:04If we think about the acquisition of Securrency, DTCC acquired that back in 2023.
05:11Coindesk said the roots of this partnership go back there.
05:14How much of what happens now is a result of technology versus sort of having been in the room longer
05:24than anyone else?
05:25Well, I think it's both.
05:27I think relationships are a really important part of building something together.
05:30But quite honestly, I think that technology is where it starts.
05:35The fact that the tech stack could actually – the compliance layer is built into the tech stack.
05:40You don't need to bolt on a smart contract to be able to do it.
05:43You have everything built in.
05:45And then you get to program that as the asset issuer.
05:48It's the same for privacy and how we think about privacy.
05:51It's built into the tech stack at the base layer.
05:53You then program on top how much you need.
05:55That's a really important piece.
05:57It was built for financial institutions, even when financial institutions weren't yet here.
06:02And now they're here, and they recognize the value of this tech stack being simple for them,
06:07but also offering them everything that all the regulatory environment needs them to have.
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