Fireside Chat with Johnna Powell DTCC and Daniela Barbosa LFDT at ETHConf

Thu, Jul 2, 2026, 12:00 AM

In this fireside chat, Daniela Barbosa from the Linux Foundation Decentralized Trust (LFDT) sits down with Johnna Powell, head of innovation and technology research at DTCC, to discuss how Wall Street's settlement infrastructure is evolving for the digital asset era. Johnna explains the scale at which DTCC operates: 4.7 quadrillion dollars in securities processed per year, custody for over 100 trillion in assets across 150 countries, all backed by netting, risk compression, and capital efficiency mechanisms that no centralized or decentralized entity currently matches. She announces DTCC received an SEC no action letter in 2025 authorizing tokenization of real world assets with the same investor protections as TradFi, with a production ready solution soft launching in July and going fully live in October. Johnna outlines the two biggest pain points ripe for disruption: collateral mobility (addressed by DTCC's upcoming Collateral App Chain built on Hyperledger Besu, launching Q4) and fragmentation across DLT networks requiring interoperability. She emphasizes preserving legal certainty of ownership, risk management, and operational resilience while redesigning the how of settlement, including extending clearing windows to support 24/5 overnight trading this month. She identifies three areas where tokenization will create value first: treasuries and highly liquid securities (Russell 1000 ETFs, US Treasury bills, bonds), collateral mobility, and cross border extended hours trading. Johnna confirms DTCC's multi chain strategy is chain agnostic by design, with partnerships across Canton, Stellar, and EVM based Hyperledger Besu, and shares DTCC's nine technical evaluation criteria for chains. She closes by saying DTCC and the Ethereum community need each other and are building a bridge from opposite sides. 00:00 Introduction 00:35 Linux Foundation and DTCC's Long History of Collaboration 01:18 What Is DTCC and Why Settlement Matters 02:27 DTCC by the Numbers: 4.7 Quadrillion Per Year 03:36 What Markets Are Asking For: 24/7, Programmability, Finality 03:56 SEC No Action Letter and Production Launch Timeline 05:08 Why Settlement Is the Critical Layer of Market Infrastructure 06:10 Unglamorous but Essential: Corporate Actions and Fails Management 06:38 What Most People Misunderstand About Settlement 07:20 Onchain Finality vs Institutional Settlement 08:19 Aligning Innovation with Hundreds of Bank Customers 09:00 Two Biggest Pain Points: Collateral Mobility and Fragmentation 09:43 Collateral App Chain on Hyperledger Besu 10:08 Multi Chain World and Interoperability 10:37 What to Preserve and What to Redesign 11:48 Three Pillars to Preserve: Legal Certainty, Risk Management, Resilience 12:30 What's Ready for Redesign: The How of Settlement 13:24 Extending Clearing Windows to 24/5 This Month 13:54 Surgical Implementation, Not Wholesale Replacement 15:04 Tokenization Where It Solves Real Problems 16:26 Where Tokenization Creates Value First 16:51 Treasuries, ETFs, and US Treasury Tokenization 17:34 Collateral and Intraday Repo on Digital Rails 17:55 Cross Border and Extended Hours Trading 18:55 Sequencing Foundation Before New Products 19:33 DTCC's Multi Chain Strategy 20:24 Chain Evaluation Criteria 22:30 Ethereum's Strengths and Challenges for Institutional Use 23:13 Hyperledger Besu as Institutional EVM Standard 23:36 Open Source, Open Standards, and Builder Responsibility 25:00 Closing: Building the Bridge from Both Sides _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHConf 2026* ETHConf is a 3 day event for founders, industry leaders, and builders who are excited about the possibilities of building on top of Ethereum. Connect with 2,000+ top innovators in crypto, finance, technology, and policy at our inaugural three-day event packed with showcases, demos, partnerships, and conversations shaping the future of the global economy. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHConf* X: https://x.com/ethconf Website: https://ethconf.com _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🎟️ Get your early bird tickets for ETHConf 2027: https://ethconf.com/2027#tickets 🎤 View the full ETHConf 2026 Speaker Schedule: https://ethconf.com/schedule _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _