TL;DR:
- Paxos Securities Settlement Company received SEC clearing agency registration under Section 17A, becoming the only blockchain-native firm approved for this role.
- The approval follows seven years with the SEC, including a 2019 no-action letter and a live U.S. equities settlement pilot beginning in 2020.
- Paxos says the infrastructure demonstrated same-day settlement, lower costs and operational efficiency within a regulated framework for eligible securities transactions with institutional participation at scale.
Paxos has secured a milestone that makes blockchain settlement feel less like a market experiment and more like regulated financial plumbing. Its subsidiary, Paxos Securities Settlement Company, received U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission registration as a clearing agency under Section 17A of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The registration turns a long pilot into formal infrastructure, making PSSC the only blockchain-native firm approved by the SEC to provide clearing and settlement services as a central securities depository in the United States, just as traditional capital markets and blockchain systems keep converging.
Paxos Securities Settlement Company has been granted registration as a clearing agency by the SEC.
We are now the only blockchain-native firm registered to provide clearing and settlement infrastructure as a central securities depository in the United States.
With this…
— Paxos (@Paxos) May 28, 2026
Blockchain settlement enters regulated market infrastructure
The approval follows a seven-year process with the SEC, beginning with a 2019 no-action letter and continuing through a settlement pilot involving some of the world’s largest and most sophisticated financial institutions. Since February 2020, under SEC no-action relief, Paxos operated daily clearing and settlement of U.S. equities with top global financial firms. That track record gives the registration practical weight, because the company had already tested live post-trade workflows before receiving clearing agency status, rather than presenting blockchain settlement as a purely theoretical replacement for legacy market infrastructure.
The pilot’s central claim was straightforward but consequential: blockchain-based post-trade infrastructure could deliver same-day settlement, reduce costs and improve operational efficiency inside a fully regulated framework. As a registered clearing agency, PSSC can now provide clearing and settlement services for transactions in eligible securities. The larger implication is regulated speed, not speed at the expense of oversight. That distinction matters for institutions that want modernized settlement but still require formal legal status, supervisory clarity and confidence that new rails can operate within established securities market rules.
For Paxos, the registration adds another capability to an infrastructure platform already built around tokenization, custody, trading and digital asset issuance. The company presents the approval as a foundation for partners looking to modernize faster, bring products to market and expand into future financial services. The strategic value sits in connecting blockchain architecture with institutional trust, because clearing and settlement are not peripheral functions. They are core market infrastructure, and SEC registration gives Paxos a rare position at the intersection of post-trade modernization, regulated securities operations and blockchain-native design for partners seeking compliant modernization rather than another untested market shortcut in production at scale now.
