Prometheum Inc. co-CEO Aaron Kaplan recently praised the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as the most capable financial markets regulatory agency in the world during a House of Representatives hearing on the crypto industry’s future. His company is now seeking to demonstrate that no new crypto rules are needed, despite pushback from the industry. Prometheum has registered as a special purpose broker-dealer for digital assets, allowing it to take custody of customers’ crypto, and is one of the few crypto firms to register with the SEC as an alternative trading system (ATS). If you allow for a compliant mechanism for people to trade and custody digital assets, I think you provide the infrastructure that will allow for that next wave of institutional adoption, Kaplan said in an interview.
Prometheum is waiting for official sign-off from the SEC to clear and settle transactions, which Kaplan said he expects to come soon. This could represent a moment in crypto history in which the industry finds out if there’s a form of digital assets platform that will be allowed to operate under existing U.S. oversight. The company has submitted a short list of examples to the SEC of securities it can handle, including Flow (FLOW), Protocol Labs’ Filecoin (FIL), The Graph (GRT), Compound (COMP) and the Celo platform’s CELO. However, Filecoin is objecting to the idea that the token FIL can be traded as a security.
Prometheum is currently employing about 50 people and Kaplan has been accused of being a puppet of SEC Chair Gary Gensler. He said it was the staff of Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) that invited him to the House hearing and he has never had any contact with the SEC outside of the typical registration process. The company is open to acquisition and Kaplan has taken the role as public advocate for the company. Give us an opportunity to show what we could do, he said.