Wintermute's US affiliate, Wintermute USA LLC, has officially registered as a broker-dealer with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), marking a significant step for the cryptocurrency trading firm into traditional financial services.

Announced on Thursday, the registration grants Wintermute USA the authority to trade equities and equity options, and to serve as an authorized participant for exchange-traded products (ETPs), including those linked to digital assets. The firm said this regulatory milestone positions it to participate in the growing tokenized securities market.

Wintermute, founded in 2017 and headquartered in London, is one of the largest algorithmic trading and liquidity providers in the digital asset industry. The firm is known for its market-making activities across major cryptocurrency exchanges and decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols.

"Our long-term conviction has always been that digital asset markets will evolve in more than one direction," said Evgeny Gaevoy, founder and CEO of Wintermute. "Digital assets and traditional finance will continue to develop in parallel, intersect in new ways, and ultimately integrate more deeply. As the landscape evolves, the firms that succeed will be those that have technical and operational know-how to operate in both."

A broker-dealer is a financial entity licensed to execute securities transactions either on behalf of clients, on its own behalf, or both. Broker-dealers operating in the United States must register with the SEC and become members of FINRA, a self-regulatory organization that oversees brokerage firms and their registered representatives.

Authorized participants (APs) play a critical role in the ETF ecosystem. They are responsible for the creation and redemption of ETF shares, a mechanism that helps keep an ETF's market price aligned with its underlying net asset value. APs work directly with ETF issuers to facilitate these processes in the primary market. The AP role has taken on heightened relevance in the digital asset sector following the SEC's approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs in January 2024 and spot Ethereum ETFs later that year, which collectively drew tens of billions in inflows.

By obtaining broker-dealer status, Wintermute USA joins a growing number of crypto-native firms seeking to bridge the divide between digital asset trading and traditional securities markets. The move comes amid increasing institutional interest in tokenized real-world assets — including tokenized treasury funds such as BlackRock's BUIDL on Ethereum and Franklin Templeton's FOBXX — and the broader convergence of crypto and conventional finance. The Bank for International Settlements and multiple sovereign bond issuers have also explored blockchain-based issuance pilots, signaling institutional momentum behind the tokenization of traditional securities.

Related: Crypto's next altseason may have fewer winners: Wintermute

Source: Cointelegraph