Wintermute USA LLC registered as a broker-dealer with the SEC and FINRA, letting the crypto firm trade stocks and options and act as an ETF authorized participant.
Crypto market-making firm Wintermute has secured broker-dealer status for its US affiliate, giving the company direct access to traditional securities markets for the first time. Wintermute USA LLC completed its registration with the US Securities and Exchange Commission and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the firm announced on Aug. 6.
The registration covers trading in stocks and stock options, and allows Wintermute USA to act as an authorized participant for exchange-traded products, including those tied to digital assets. Authorized participants are the firms that manage the creation and redemption of exchange-traded fund shares in capital markets.
Building a Presence in Traditional Finance
Evgeny Gaevoy, founder and CEO of Wintermute, framed the registration as part of the firm's long-held view that digital asset markets and traditional finance would eventually merge. "Our long-term conviction has always been that digital asset markets will evolve in more than one direction," Gaevoy said.
"Digital assets and traditional finance will continue to develop in parallel, intersect in new ways, and ultimately integrate more deeply," he added. "As the landscape evolves, the firms that succeed will be those that have technical and operational know-how to operate in both."
Related Article: Wintermute Data Shows Institutional Grip Tightening on Altcoin Market
Tokenized Securities Drive the Strategy
Wintermute said the broker-dealer registration positions it for growth in the tokenized securities market in the US. Tokenized securities represent traditional financial instruments, such as stocks or bonds, issued and transferred on a blockchain.
The move allows Wintermute to serve clients across both crypto and conventional asset classes from a single US-registered entity. A broker-dealer can trade securities on behalf of clients, on its own account, or both, which gives the firm flexibility in how it participates in securities markets.
Wintermute had previously moved into prediction markets as a liquidity provider, a step that signaled the firm's appetite for expanding beyond its core crypto market-making role. The broker-dealer registration marks its most direct step yet into regulated US financial infrastructure
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