Promethium Ember Capital, (“PEC”), an entirely owned subsidiary of Promethium, has turn out to be the primary digital asset custody supplier to come back underneath federal regulation. PEC was permitted as a particular objective broker-dealer (“SPBD”) for digital asset securities. The approval permits Promethium to custody digital asset securities on behalf of each retail and institutional purchasers.
The importance of that is two-fold. First, as digital asset securities, ought to the SEC classify digital belongings similar to cryptocurrencies and NFT as securities reasonably than derivatives, Promethium will probably be effectively positioned to supply the associated custody companies.
Secondly, as a professional custodian, which is what the SPBD classification presents, topics Promethium to provisions of the landmark United States Change Act of 1934. As famous by Promethium Co-CEO Aaron Kaplan, “Digital asset buyers within the IS are presently custodying cryptocurrencies which are securities on platforms that don’t provide the identical SEA 15c3-3 buyer protections required by the federal securities legal guidelines.”
15c3-3 presents retail purchasers superior collateral protections in opposition to losses within the occasion of a custodian chapter and require extra frequent and stringent collateral protections for each retail and institutional purchasers.
Whereas there are numerous different digital asset custodians within the market presently, they’re working underneath state licenses, a lot of which don’t provide the identical protections to retail or institutional purchasers.