Earlier today, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) and the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) announced plans to enable the tokenization of DTC-custodied traditional assets on the public Stellar network.
The announcement is a monumental win for Stellar, and it has already drawn reactions and defensive maneuvers from the XRP community.
The details of the breakthrough
The partnership connects DTCC, which is the leading post-trade market infrastructure, directly with Stellar’s public blockchain.
It aspires to determine whether tokenization is suitable for highly liquid traditional assets, including constituents of the Russell 1000, major index-tracking ETFs, and U.S. Treasury bills and bonds.
Austin Campbell, a prominent financial commentator, noted that DTCC's pivot to an actual public blockchain pushes tokenization away from "pure theater for private entities." "This is starting to move their project away from pure theater for private entities only towards the possibility of self-custodial, composable building on-chain. A very positive step and I salute both DTCC and Stellar for this move," he noted.
"This one gotta sting"
Stellar (XLM) and the Ripple-linked XRP are generally viewed as arch-rivals, given that they share a lot of history and similar use cases. Stellar was, of course, founded by controversial Ripple co-founder Jed MacCaleb.
Popular anti-XRP crypto commentator ScamDaddy took a direct jab at Ripple's passionate fan base, posting on X: "Damn. I know this one gotta sting the XRP community."
However, there was a pushback from XRP community members and legal commentators. They have largely dismissed the idea that Stellar's win was a loss for XRP, chalking up the narrative to market misunderstandings.
Prominent pro-XRP attorney Bill Morgan has accused critics of missing the bigger picture. "You missed the words ‘multi-chain strategy,’" Morgan replied. He argued that the development is actually a blow to Bitcoin maximalists. "Bitcoin will not be one of the multiple L1s or L2s because you can barely tokenize anything on that useless old blockchain... So no sting unless you are a Bitcoin maxi."
Other digital asset investors echoed Morgan's thoughts, maintaining that the institutional landscape is large enough for both assets. "Not really, I own both," an X usernoted, predicting the emergence of a "two-tier system" featuring both XRP and XLM. Everyone knows this was going to be multi-chain. Seems only you are surprised," another commentator said.
Dan Burgin
