Fidelity Pushes SEC for Green Light on Crypto Trading Through ATS Platforms - Crypto Economy

TL;DR:

• Fidelity filed a formal letter with the SEC requesting regulations that allow broker-dealers to operate crypto assets in alternative trading systems.
• The request relies on the National Market System infrastructure, which already regulates 29 national exchanges and more than 113 alternative trading systems.
• The SEC and the CFTC issued joint guidance classifying most crypto assets as digital commodities.

Fidelity Investments filed a formal letter with the SEC’s Crypto Task Force, signed by its general counsel Roberto Braceras on behalf of its registered broker-dealers and investment advisers. The document responds to the request for information put forward by Commissioner Hester Peirce on national securities exchanges and alternative trading systems that operate crypto assets, an initiative formally named *And Then Some*.

The request is concise and direct: Fidelity urges the SEC to develop a regulatory framework that allows broker-dealers to operate cryptocurrencies in alternative trading systems, known as ATS, within the existing regulatory infrastructure in the United States.


Fidelity Calls for a Logical Extension of a System that Already Exists

The letter does not propose the creation of a new regime. Fidelity argues that the National Market System, built on the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, Regulation NMS, and SEC rules, has the capacity to incorporate crypto assets if the framework is extended appropriately. The firm contends that the proposal is a natural continuation of the existing market structure, not a break from it.

ATS are regulated venues that connect buyers and sellers outside traditional exchanges. They operate under SEC oversight through Form ATS registration and are subject to existing broker-dealer rules, market surveillance, and investor protection standards. Extending ATS eligibility to crypto assets would allow Fidelity and other registered broker-dealers to offer cryptocurrency trading through the same regulated infrastructure they use for equities and other securities, rather than relying on separate crypto platforms operating under different regimes.

The commercial weight of the request is straightforward. Fidelity serves more than 50 million individuals and institutions through 13,500 financial intermediary firms. Its broker-dealer National Financial Services LLC operates an NMS equity ATS called CrossStream. Incorporating crypto assets into that existing infrastructure is both operationally and commercially coherent for a firm of that scale.


The Moment Everything Aligns

In the same week the letter was submitted, the SEC and the CFTC published joint guidance classifying most crypto assets as digital commodities, the CFTC confirmed Bitcoin and Ethereum as eligible collateral for derivatives, and the NYSE completed the removal of position limits on crypto ETF options. Fidelity did not wait for the House Financial Services Committee hearing on tokenization, scheduled for March 25, to stake its position It enters the record before Congress convenes, formalizing at the level of market structure a regulatory alignment that is already underway.