Crypto market maker Wintermute has registered its US arm, Wintermute USA, as a broker-dealer with the SEC and FINRA, a move that lets it trade equities and options and step directly into regulated US securities markets.

The registration lets Wintermute USA provide liquidity on US securities exchanges and to OTC counterparties, trade stocks and options from its own account, self-clear digital-asset securities, and act as an Authorized Participant for ETFs, including those tied to digital assets. It is a clear bet on the tokenization of traditional markets, and on the SEC's stance that onchain securities activity needs proper licensing.

Wintermute already clears more than $10B in average daily volume across 60-plus centralized and decentralized venues, and earlier this year added tokenized-gold market-making and prediction-market liquidity.