According to Blockworks, tZero Group Inc. announced that it has obtained a special purpose broker license in the United States, becoming the second company to receive this license. Chief Legal Officer Alan Konevsky said this provides a unique opportunity to support digital assets regulated in the United States.
The license allows tZero to custody digital asset securities, similar to Prometheum Inc., which received such a license last year. Both companies must treat the tokens they custody as securities, regardless of how the issuer defines them.
Konevsky hopes the license will pave the way for safe, regulated digital asset securities trading in the U.S. Prometheum announced that its newly launched institutional custody platform will support Optimism (OP) and The Graph (GRT).
tZero said it will support any digital asset securities that it legally custody, including assets that the SEC now considers to be securities, provided that regulators provide a path for legal transactions. Prometheum CEO Benjamin Kaplan said the company has provided custody services for ETH, ARB, UNI, OP and GRT to financial institutions, enterprises or institutional investors.
tZero plans to launch custody services early next year, and the first asset will be TZROP, the company’s preferred stock that has been trading since 2019.