tZERO has entered into an agreement that allows Prime Trust to facilitate custody of digital securities and cryptocurrencies for its customers who trade on platforms operated by tZERO’s regulated subsidiaries.
The new infrastructure will replace reliance on third-party clearing firms and will enable accelerated onboarding of new digital securities.
In addition, it is set to improve the account funding process and enhances the settlement process.
The updated central custody is also expected to replace tZERO’s existing cryptocurrency wallet, the tZERO Crypto app.
Saum Noursalehi, CEO of tZERO, explains: “This trading model creates flexibility for customers, subscribers, and issuers that join our marketplace, and opens our marketplace to securities with greater blockchain functionality.”
In addition to the customer self-custody model, which would support digital securities and cryptocurrencies, tZERO ATS’s trading ecosystem will also continue to support a conventional broker-dealer clearing and custody model, principally for NMS securities.
tZERO says it is currently working to evaluate the pathway for its broker-dealer subsidiaries to custody digital securities without reliance on any third parties.
This comes after the US Securities and Exchange Commission outlined how broker-dealers can engage with digital asset securities, including maintaining custody of these assets and settling on-chain without a clearing firm or a custodian.
