Interoperability Crucial for Digital Asset Securities to Reach Mass Adoption

2026-03-23 - 07:00

As digital asset securities move from experimentation to scale, interoperability has emerged as one of the industry’s most urgent and critical challenges. Without interoperability, assets remain trapped in isolated pools and operational costs remain high for market participants, preventing the industry from achieving the full potential of distributed ledger technology (DLT). Against this backdrop, Clearstream, the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC) and Euroclear, supported by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) released in February 2026 a new whitepaper, outlining a practical framework to advance interoperability, reduce fragmentation and accelerate adoption of digital asset securities. It defines interoperability in capital markets as the ability to exchange assets across both DLT and traditional ledgers, while preserving the asset’s integrity, ownership rights and lifecycle, and maintaining full legal and regulatory compliance. Key principles of interoperability in capital markets To achieve this, the framework highlights five key principles. First, the principle of solution neutrality considers interoperability issues independently from the actor that solves it or the approach that is used to solve it. Second, the principle of bridging networks recognizes that traditional finance (TradFi) and decentralized finance (DeFI) will operate alongside each other, requiring assets to move seamlessly between DLT and TradFi ledgers in both directions. Third, the principle of business continuity at all times prioritizes resilience and tolerance to change, ensuring that interoperable rails can withstand upgrades to assets, contracts, and ledgers while engagements persist. Fourth, inclusivity fosters the inclusion of every market participant across the value chain. Finally, the principle of financial market infrastructure (FMI)-grade security and resilience ensure that interoperability never weakens security. This requires all connected ledgers or platforms to always meet single-ledger-grade standards. Core components Diving deeper into the strategy’s key components, the framework highlights three key components that must be interoperable. First, data must be standardized with common identifiers, taxonomies, and message standards created, similarly to what financial markets achieved with the International Securities Identification Number (ISIN) for financial and referential instruments. Processes must also be harmonized to replicate the efficiency gains achieved in TradFi through SWIFT standardized protocols. These protocols enable consistent data transfer across financial institutions, adding efficiency and cost savings to treasury worldwide. Finally, roles assignment must be consistent, with clearly defined responsibilities for critical functions, such as custody, validation, and oversight. This aims to replicate what TradFi has achieved with custodians, central securities depositories (CSDs), and clearing houses to preserve accountability and trust. Calling for industry collaboration The paper calls for robust industry collaboration, and encourages the formation of working groups across the industry under the sponsorship of FMIs and supervisors. These working groups should focus on several different themes. On governance, this group should focus on defining an industry-wide roadmap to guide steps toward full interoperability. They should also work on defining standards on data, processes or roles, or building guidebook for implementations in financial institutions. Specific opportunities include data model standards for wallets, smart contracts, and corporate actions, as well as clarifying role assignments for these components. Additionally, these working groups should develop guidelines on smart contract integrity and change management, or industry wide resilience metrics and monitoring tools. They should also design controls for outage, error handling or cybersecurity risk management. Finally, these groups should focus on principles and techniques to safeguard customer assets, including defining custody and settlement principles for FMIs, and developing frameworks for asset and activity segregation of FMIs. DLT in capital markets On-chain digital asset security activity remains small compared to traditional securities. In 2022, the stock of DLT-based securities stood at about US$310 billion comprising a combination of listed and unlisted equity, bonds and other financial assets, according to a 2023 report by the Global Financial Markets Association (GFMA) together with BCG, Clifford Chance and Cravath, Swaine and Moore. In comparison, traditional securities include US$145.1 trillion in global foreign exchange (FX) and US$126 trillion in global equity. However, adoption of digital assets is accelerating. According to the GFMA report, conservative projections suggest that DLT-based securities could reach approximately US$16 trillion by 2030. Best-case scenarios estimate a total market value of US$68 trillion by then. In the capital markets, research findings indicate that DLT has the potential to significantly reduce costs. This cost reduction could lead to an estimated annual saving of approximately US$15-20 billion in global infrastructure operational expenditures stemming from streamlining and automating various processes, as well as minimizing the need for intermediaries and human intervention. Featured image by Who is Danny on Freepik