Longtime Bitcoin Advocate Launches Broker-Dealer for Crypto Firms

Longtime bitcoin advocate Bruce Fenton has created a new broker-dealer for digital asset firms and financial advisors called Watchdog Capital.

The firm is registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and a member of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, public filings show.

It's a subsidiary of digital securities firm Chainstone Labs, also led by Fenton, founder of the Satoshi Roundtable conference.

"A lot of companies have been advised by their lawyers to become a broker-dealer," Fenton said.

Fenton began the process to license a broker-dealer around nine months ago and was approved to operate in July, but he has had the idea since April 2016 when The DAO, an ill-fated decentralized autonomous organization, debuted.

"At the time, knowing the regulations so well, I said 'This is not going to fly with the SEC," Fenton said.

Watchdog is serving as a back office to crypto and blockchain companies as well as serving individual representatives such as financial advisors.

Independent financial consultants can use Watchdog's license to trade crypto for interested clients.

He wouldn't say what percentage of Watchdog's business with crypto and blockchain-related firms would make up but predicted all assets will be tokenized in the future, including government bonds.

"You can't move your Apple shares and you definitely can't move shares of your local favorite restaurant around the way you can move a token," Fenton said.