tZero announces SPBD license as Prometheum moves ahead with custody platform

tZero Group Inc. has earned its special purpose broker dealer license in the US, the company announced Tuesday, becoming the second ever to do so. 

“This is a unique opportunity for us to develop the infrastructure to support regulated digital assets in the United States,” Alan Konevsky, chief legal officer at tZero, told Blockworks. 

The license permits tZero to custody digital asset securities, similar to Prometheum Inc., which became the first digital asset firm to obtain this type of license last year. Both companies must treat any custodied tokens as securities, regardless of how issuers themselves identity them. 

Read more: Why SOL, MATIC and others could still be under SEC threat

Konevsky hopes the license — which took tZero three and a half years to earn — will create a path forward for safe, regulated digital asset securities trading in the US. 

“It’s fine to say that a number of these assets should be treated as securities,” Konevsky said. 

“What’s not fine is to take that position and not permit the marketplace to develop the right kind of regulated infrastructure to support digital asset security trading. That’s not really consistent with the position and objective that these are regulated assets and you need to treat them that way.” 

A day after tZero announced its license, Prometheum revealed additional assets that will be supported on its newly-launched institutional custodian platform: Optimism (OP) and The Graph (GRT). Prometheum previously said that its platform will include ETH, Uniswap (UNI) and Arbitrum (ARB). 

tZero, Konevsky said, “will support custody of any digital asset security that it can lawfully custody, pursuant to guidance from the [Securities and Exchange Commission] and FINRA.” This includes potential assets that were not initially issued as registered securities but ones “the SEC now deems to be securities,” he added, provided regulators create a “pathway” for how these assets can be legally traded by a broker dealer. 

“To our knowledge, this guidance has not been provided for the kinds of assets that Prometheum identified in its filings,” Konevsky said. 

“We would welcome guidance and clarity from the regulators on how we can lawfully support those types of assets, and then we’ll execute on that guidance,” he added. 

Prometheum CEO Benjamin Kaplan said his firm “is able to offer custody of digital asset securities through its SPBD.” 

“As of today we are open for business for financial institutions, corporates or institutional investors seeking a qualified custodian to custody ETH, ARB, UNI, OP and GRT and very much look forward to continuing to expand those offerings across the wide spectrum of digital asset securities,” Kaplan added. 

tZero plans to launch its custody service early next year, the company said, with its first asset being the firm’s own preferred stock, TZROP, which has been trading since 2019. 

A modified version of this article first appeared in the daily On the Margin newsletter. Subscribe here so you don’t miss tomorrow’s edition.

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