Major Wall Street Banks Pioneer 24/7 Tokenized Treasuries Trading on Canton Network

In a landmark development for the convergence of traditional finance and blockchain technology, leading Wall Street institutions have successfully executed the first real-time, on-chain financing arrangement involving tokenized treasuries. The groundbreaking transaction unfolded on a Saturday using the Canton Network, a privacy-focused blockchain platform developed by Digital Asset, demonstrating how tokenized treasuries can operate beyond traditional market hours.

The repo trade was facilitated through Tradeweb and achieved atomic settlement on-chain, effectively circumventing the weekday-only constraints that have long defined global financial markets. This marks a pivotal moment in demonstrating the practical viability of blockchain infrastructure for handling government debt securities at scale.

Historic On-Chain Settlement: How Tokenized Treasuries Break Market Boundaries

Prime brokers converted U.S. Treasuries held at the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) into tokenized assets on Canton, then leveraged them as collateral to secure USDC-backed financing. This process represents a fundamental shift in how collateral can be mobilized and utilized on distributed ledger systems.

The participating institutions reflect the institutional weight now backing blockchain-based financial infrastructure: Bank of America, Circle, Citadel Securities, Cumberland DRW, DTCC, Hidden Road, Societe Generale, Virdu Financial, and Tradeweb all participated in this transaction. Most of these firms were investors in Digital Asset’s recent $135 million fundraising round in June, signaling strong institutional confidence in the vision of blockchain-powered financial markets.

What distinguishes this achievement is the atomic nature of the settlement—eliminating the multi-day clearing windows that characterize traditional treasury markets. The transaction occurred on a Saturday, a day when conventional market infrastructure sits dormant, yet the blockchain-based system operated seamlessly. This capability directly addresses one of the longest-standing inefficiencies in global financial markets: the rigid settlement calendars tied to banking hours.

The Players Behind Blockchain-Based Treasury Financing

The orchestration of this transaction required coordination among diverse market participants spanning custody, trading, technology, and clearing infrastructure. The DTCC’s role was particularly significant, as it demonstrated how legacy financial infrastructure can integrate with tokenized asset systems. Tradeweb’s platform facilitated the actual trade execution, while Canton Network’s privacy architecture ensured institutional-grade security and confidentiality.

Kelly Mathieson, chief business development officer at Digital Asset, underscored the strategic importance: “This transaction demonstrates how market participants can unlock real-time collateral mobility and round-the-clock financing using assets on chain, which lays the groundwork for a fundamentally more efficient and accessible global financial system.”

This success builds on the broader movement toward tokenizing financial instruments—a trend gaining momentum as global banks and asset managers recognize the potential to compress settlement timelines, enhance market transparency, and enable continuous-operation markets. Tokenized treasuries specifically address a critical gap: government debt represents the cornerstone of global collateral markets, and bringing this asset class onto blockchain infrastructure could reshape market structure fundamentally.

From Weekend Repo to Round-the-Clock Markets: The Future of Tokenized Treasuries

The participants have signaled plans to execute additional tokenized treasuries transactions later this year, suggesting this is not an isolated experiment but the beginning of a strategic shift. The vision articulated by market participants transcends mere technological novelty—they envision a unified market structure that merges traditional finance’s enormous capital base with the programmability and efficiency of blockchain-based rails.

Tokenized treasuries trading on platforms like Canton Network could eventually eliminate many of the artificial constraints imposed by legacy market infrastructure. A treasuries market operating continuously would unlock capital that currently sits idle during off-hours, enhance risk management capabilities through real-time collateral adjustments, and reduce the operational overhead embedded in traditional settlement processes.

The standardization of tokenized treasury formats and the establishment of reliable on-chain settlement pathways could attract increasing participation from asset managers and institutions seeking more efficient collateral management. As this infrastructure matures, the traditional bifurcation between spot and derivatives markets may converge on unified blockchain-based platforms offering superior execution and settlement characteristics.

This weekend repo transaction represents the first visible confirmation that institutional finance is ready to transition from blockchain pilots to operational deployment. The success of tokenized treasuries in this controlled environment suggests that the next frontier for digital financial infrastructure is not distant—it is already being written by major Wall Street institutions reimagining what 24/7 market structure could achieve.