Paxos wins SEC approval to clear U.S. stocks on blockchain

Paxos Securities Settlement Company, LLC (PSSC) has received full registration to provide clearing and settlement services by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Stablecoin issuer Paxos said the regulatory milestone makes its subsidiary the first blockchain firm authorized to operate as a central securities depository (CSD) for traditional equities in the U.S., positioning it alongside legacy post-trade frameworks like the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC).

The approval clears a bottleneck for Paxos’ goals for institutional tokenization of real-world assets (RWAs), providing market participants with a pipeline to clear and settle digital asset trades involving traditional equities, per SEC’s response to Paxos on March 11.

Paxos, which already holds licenses from the OCC in the U.S., Singapore’s MAS, and Europe’s FIN-FSA. said the central clearinghouse designation also allows it to bundle regulated stock clearing with its existing white-label infrastructure tools used by PayPal and Mastercard.

The SEC first granted Paxos no-action relief in 2019, allowing the firm to develop a live settlement pilot in February 2020, which allowed it to integrate traditional finance (TradFi) giants such Bank of America, Credit Suisse and Societe Generale to clear daily U.S. equities transitions.

Paxo’s newly registered status enables it to bypass legacy settlement infrastructure entirely. With blockchain as the clearing rail, PSSC can settle eligible securities on a same-day or nearly instantly, eliminating the traditional settlement window and freeing up locked capital for institutional participants.

In traditional capital markets, stock trades execute in milliseconds, but final settlement, the actual exchange of cash for legal asset ownership, is processed through a centralized clearing house, typically, the DTCC.

While the U.S. equity markets transitioned to a T+1 (one business day) standard settlement cycle in 2024, legacy financial plumbing continues to be restrained to structural delays, trapped collateral and counterparty risks.