Abra, the digital assets and wealth management platform, purchased Tron (TRX) and Zilliqa (ZIL) among other private crypto trusts from Valkyrie Investments.
Bloomberg reported on Friday that Abra acquired the private trusts just before its settlement with 25 U.S. state regulators over charges of operating without required licenses.
Abra Capital Management LP, a US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)-registered investment advisor, undertook this initiative, the Abra head of asset management Marissa Kim said.
Specifically, the acquisitions included the purchase of Valkyrie trusts for Tron and Zilliqa and others that are yet to launch.
Kim notes that the crypto private trusts offer Abra Capital Management the opportunity to expand its spot and decentralized finance (DeFi) products to more investors. Abra could file to have some of the trusts to be publicly-traded, Kim added, saying that this would be subject to market demand.
With crypto trusts, an asset manager owns digital assets on the investor’s behalf.
The shares of the coins, TRX or ZIL in this case, are tradable in over-the-counter (OTC) markets. However, these investment assets are not exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and are only open to accredited investors, institutions or high-net-worth individuals.
US state regulator settlement
The latest news about Abra comes weeks after the company settled with several U.S. state regulators after charges related to unregistered operations in the offering of crypto assets.
This settlement happened in June and will see Abra return $82.1 million in cryptocurrencies to U.S. customers.
Abra also settled with Texas securities regulators in January 2024, which allows customers to withdraw their funds.
Crypto services via Abra Treasury
Abra Capital Management announced the launch of Abra Treasury this week, with crypto services targeted at corporates, family offices and non-profits.
These customers can leverage Abra for custody, borrowing, trading and yield, with services. Accessible via separately managed accounts. Investors will retain the title and ownership of their digital assets, which will be verifiable on-chain.