Crypto market maker Wintermute has secured broker-dealer status in the United States, giving the firm a regulated pathway into Wall Street as digital asset trading and traditional securities markets continue to converge.

New York-based Wintermute USA LLC has registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), the company announced. The unit will operate as a proprietary trading firm rather than a retail broker, and did not announce any retail brokerage services.

The registration authorizes Wintermute to trade U.S. stocks and equity options, provide liquidity to exchanges and over-the-counter counterparties, and act as an authorized participant for exchange-traded funds (ETFs), including crypto-linked funds. Authorized participants create and redeem large blocks of ETF shares directly with fund issuers, a mechanism that helps keep an ETF's market price closely aligned with the value of its underlying holdings. The crypto ETF landscape has expanded materially since the SEC approved spot Bitcoin ETFs in January 2024 and spot Ethereum ETFs later that year, creating new demand for institutional-grade liquidity providers in these products.

The approval also enables Wintermute to seek market-making roles on exchanges such as the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq. The firm has already lined up ETF issuers to partner with, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Additionally, Wintermute is authorized to self-clear digital asset securities for proprietary accounts. The firm plans to focus initially on crypto-linked markets, with intentions to expand into tokenized stocks pending the necessary regulatory approvals. Tokenized equities remain a nascent but actively developing area, with multiple trading venues and infrastructure providers building out frameworks for blockchain-represented securities, though the regulatory perimeter for such products is still being defined.

According to the company, Wintermute handles more than $10 billion in average daily trading volume across over 60 centralized and decentralized venues.

The broker-dealer approval follows a broader U.S. expansion effort. Wintermute opened its New York headquarters last year and later petitioned the SEC to confirm that broker-dealers could trade tokenized securities for their own accounts, self-clear transactions, and hold proprietary positions through wallet software.

Wintermute joins a growing roster of crypto firms that have acquired or built regulated U.S. securities businesses as the boundary between crypto markets and traditional finance narrows. Ripple completed its $1.25 billion acquisition of prime broker Hidden Road in 2025. GSR acquired broker-dealer Equilibrium Capital Services, and Crypto.com purchased Watchdog Capital in 2024. The pattern of acquisitions reflects a broader industry push to operate within established regulatory frameworks rather than alongside them, as firms position themselves to serve institutional clients that require regulated counterparty relationships.