Athena Blockchain Teams Up with US Broker Dealer 303 Alternatives

Athena Blockchain, a startup investment firm focused on tokenized investment products. is teaming up with FINRA-‎registered broker-dealer 303 Alternatives LLC to allow marketing and placement of its offerings in compliance with US regulations.

The acquisition puts the Chicago-based company on a firmer regulatory footing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and positions it to offer both traditional investment banking services and a broader range of blockchain-based securities.

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The step also paves the way for the company to tap business lines of the ‎registered broker dealer to operate its contemplated U.S. oriented services in a regulatory compliant manner.‎

Effectively, both firms hope to see its regulated systems attract more ‎professional and institutional investors to a market that has raised more ‎than $4 billion in 2017‎.

The move also comes just as the US Securities and Exchange ‎‎Commission is seeking legitimate platforms serving as ‎trading venues ‎for digital assets. ‎

This topic has received much attention since the SEC ‎made clear that any digital token with an income stream is ‎a security, and furthermore that ‎any entity wants to ‎become an ATS needs to register with the SEC as a ‎broker-dealer and become a member of a self-regulating ‎organization, such as the ‎FINRA.‎

Earlier in June, Coinbase has announced that it is moving forward with a plan to acquire licensure that would allow the company to begin offering blockchain-based securities and participate in the ICO market. The company has also acquired the broker-dealer Keystone Capital Corp., based in California.

Additionally, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, Huobi, has recently made a significant investment in OpenFinance Network (OFN), a trading exchange for tokenized securities.