In brief
- Paxos Securities Settlement Company has received SEC registration as a clearing agency.
- The registration allows Paxos to operate as a central securities depository and provide clearing and settlement services, while meeting ongoing regulatory requirements.
- The approval follows seven years of regulatory engagement, including a 2019 No-Action Letter and a pilot program operating since February 2020.
Paxos Securities Settlement Company, a subsidiary of blockchain infrastructure firm Paxos, has received SEC registration as a clearing agency under Section 17A of the Securities Exchange Act.
The registration makes Paxos the “only blockchain-native firm” approved by the SEC to operate as a central securities depository in the United States, the company said in a press release.
The SEC order describes the approval as a temporary registration, allowing the company to provide clearing and settlement services while meeting ongoing regulatory requirements. “Most importantly, it allows us to offer the most complete infrastructure for our partners to continue evolving with the market and blockchain technology,” Paxos CEO and Co-Founder Charles Cascarilla said in a statement.
The milestone caps a seven-year regulatory journey, Cascarilla said, “beginning with our No-Action Letter in 2019 and the settlement pilot we operated with some of the world’s largest and most sophisticated financial institutions.”
That pilot program, which began in February 2020, has been clearing and settling U.S. equities on a daily basis with participation from “top global financial institutions” operating under SEC no-action relief, the firm said. In 2022, a blockchain-based pilot launched by Paxos in partnership with State Street achieved same-day settlement times for stock trading, known as “T+0.”
The registration comes as established infrastructure providers embrace tokenization, with the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation recently revealing plans for its own tokenization service backed by major Wall Street firms.
Paxos issues several digital assets including PayPal’s PYUSD stablecoin and Pax Gold (PAXG). In October 2025, an “internal technical error” saw the firm accidentally mint and then burn 300 trillion PYUSD tokens. Months later, the company received conditional approval to convert to an OCC national trust bank, enabling it to operate under a single federal ruleset instead of a patchwork of state regulations.
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