On May 29 the SEC granted Paxos Securities Settlement Company clearing-agency registration as a central securities depository. It's the first blockchain-native firm to get this registration under Section 17A. The registration is temporary, and it ends a process that started with Paxos's 2019 no-action letter. Paxos has run live clearing and settlement of US equities under that relief since February 2020.
Paxos is also one of the largest stablecoin issuers. While Pax Dollar (USDP) is shrinking, PayPal's PYUSD grew from $910M to $4.2B over nine months, now around $3.4B, and Global Dollar Network's USDG grew from $314M to $2.5B over eleven months. Paxos also issues PAXG, which is backed by gold and tracks the gold price, and its market cap nearly quadrupled to about $2.1B as supply grew and gold price rose.
Why it matters: Paxos is now one of the handful of SEC-registered central securities depositories and the only blockchain-native one, uniquely pairing regulated securities settlement with its stablecoin and PAXG infrastructure on the same ledger. This enables true atomic delivery-versus-payment at scale, slashing capital lock-up, settlement risk, and operational costs in ways legacy systems can't match. With years of proven live operations already in place, it gives institutions a practical, full-stack on-chain option and could accelerate mainstream tokenization of equities, bonds, and real-world assets.
The Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC) and the Stellar Development Foundation said they will enable tokenization of DTC-custodied assets on Stellar, with the assets expected to be available in the first half of 2027. It's part of DTCC's multi-chain strategy and follows a December 2025 SEC no-action letter authorizing DTC to run a tokenization service for custodied assets. The first asset classes under evaluation are Russell 1000 constituents, ETFs tracking major indices, and US Treasury bills, bonds, and notes. For scale, DTCC subsidiaries processed $4.7 quadrillion in transactions in 2025, and DTC services $114 trillion in assets across 150+ countries. Stellar already carries real-world assets, and the mix has widened. Tokenized RWAs on Stellar now include money market funds from Franklin Templeton and WisdomTree, bonds from the World Bank and the European Investment Bank, and gold tokens from Paxos.
Why it matters: This is the incumbent settlement layer testing on-chain issuance on its core instruments and it may result in the largest tokenization effort to date by a wide margin. The asset classes under evaluation are among DTC's biggest and fastest-growing: equities grew to $74T by 2025, the ETFs within them doubled to $11T, and Money Market Instruments are valued at approximately $4T. Tokenizing even a small share of that custody base would dwarf the roughly $27B assets tokenized today.
SoFi (Social Finance), the American fintech company and nationally chartered bank, made SoFiUSD available inside its banking app, so its 14.7M members can buy, sell, hold, and convert it, with 1:1 redemption for dollars at SoFi Bank. The token (SOFID) launched on Ethereum in December 2025 and on Solana in early May 2026. SoFi positions it as the first stablecoin issued by a US national bank, and the first available to retail directly inside a banking app. It's issued by SoFi Bank, N.A. under OCC regulation and backed by liquid assets the bank holds against supply, though the token itself is not FDIC-insured. Very few of SoFi members hold it so far. On-chain there is about $100M of SOFID on Ethereum and close to nothing on Solana, held by just 3 addresses on Ethereum and 6 on Solana, because the in-app rollout only just started. SoFi's stated next steps are a first institutional listing on the Bullish exchange and converting SOFID into interest-bearing tokenized deposits that would carry FDIC insurance.
Why it matters: SoFi is the first US national bank to issue a stablecoin for its own retail customers, and that precedent matters more than its current supply. The stablecoins we track grew from 30 in 2020 to more than 200 in 2025, yet USDC and USDT still hold over 85% of total supply, so few new entrants try to win general-purpose share. Some compete instead on DeFi integration, mainly USDe and USDS. Others serve a specific geography or institution. SoFiUSD is the third kind: a way for SoFi to keep its customers' payments inside its own products rather than a play for the broad market. We expect more banks to follow over the next few years, issuing their own stablecoins to serve and retain their customer bases rather than to compete with USDC and USDT.
USAT, Tether's US-focused stablecoin, has grown quickly since launching in January 2026. Supply went from $28M at the end of March to $145M at the end of April, a 5.2x jump in a month, driven mostly by a single $100M issuer mint on April 15, and it now stands at $157M. Holder count followed a different timeline: it sat near 2,000 through April, then rose sharply from May 19, ending the month at 8,347. USAT is issued through the federally chartered Anchorage Digital, one of the compliant options emerging as the GENIUS Act is implemented. The holder base is broad, but the float is concentrated. The issuer treasury wallet holds 64% of supply, about $100M. The next nine wallets hold another 17%, so the top 10 addresses control 81%.
Why it matters: USAT's growth is closely tied to US regulation. Because it's GENIUS Act-compliant and issued through a federally chartered bank, it's built for institutional adoption, giving US institutions a regulated dollar token they can hold and use under the new framework. It also shows how Tether segments by jurisdiction. USDT is still by far the largest stablecoin, around $130B, and dominates global flows and remittances, especially on Tron, but it stays offshore and outside the stricter regimes. When MiCA took effect, Tether wound down its euro token EURT and let USDT be delisted in the EU rather than meet the reserve rules. In the US it did the opposite, launching USAT as a purpose-built compliant token. The question now is whether USAT can build a genuinely distributed float before bank-issued stablecoins like SoFiUSD enter the same compliance category.
On May 29, CME Group switched on 24/7 trading across its crypto futures and options (BTC, ETH, SOL, and seven other altcoins). The same day, the CFTC issued its first policy statement on perpetual contracts and approved Kalshi's BTCPERP, the first regulated US bitcoin perpetual futures contract listed on a Designated Contract Market. The clearance is narrow. The order covers bitcoin only; the CFTC said perpetuals on other asset classes, including equities, metals, and agricultural products, must go through case-by-case Commission review rather than self-certification, and equity or index perps would also need SEC review. On-chain venues already run these at size. Hyperliquid alone holds about $9.5B in total perpetual open interest, more than 57% of the on-chain perp market, including $2.3B in BTC perps, and clears nearly $8B in daily volume, of which roughly $2B comes from BTC trades.
Why it matters: These changes make it easier for institutions to trade crypto derivatives inside regulated US venues. They can now hedge over the weekend instead of holding risk until Monday, the gap between futures and spot prices should narrow, and there's regulatory clarity for compliance teams. The CFTC's stated aim is to keep perpetual trading, most of which still happens offshore, in regulated US markets. This also creates pressure on on-chain venues: the features that set them apart, always-on trading and perpetuals, are exactly what the incumbents are now adopting, and the incumbents bring regulatory standing and institutional reach that on-chain platforms lack. On-chain venues proved the model, but the open question is whether they can keep their edge as regulated players close the gap.
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