It’s been a whirlwind few years for digital and alternative assets. Digital assets remain among the most hotly debated topics in the industry, while exciting ideas for investing in private equity, commodities, art and the like have proliferated. The common thread among these diverse asset classes: investor demand has far outpaced the ability to access them.
Like many industry professionals, we were frustrated by these gaps in the marketplace – so we decided to do something about it. We realized that our years of experience working the ins and outs of depositary receipt (DR) market structure put us in a unique position to help investors harness the innovation occurring within digital and alternative assets.
Since the issuance of the first American Depositary Receipt (ADR) nearly a century ago, DRs have been used to enable foreign assets, debt and commodities to trade, settle and clear just like domestic securities. They’ve proven their resilience throughout periods of market turmoil, remaining safe access products through crises like the Great Depression and the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. Today, institutional investors own over $1 trillion in DRs.
We built our careers educating issuers and investors on the benefits of DRs. We even helped bring to market some of the largest and most innovative DR IPOs in history. Now, we are continuing that journey at our own business: RDC.
Inside Our Vision
A first-of-its-kind depositary platform, RDC uses the tried-and-true DR structure to enable qualifying investors to invest in digital and alternative assets just as easily as traditional securities. Today, this means they can directly own, convert and transfer digital assets as DTC-eligible securities, improving access and security in these markets by an order of magnitude. It’s a powerful new application of a widely accepted and fully regulated investment vehicle, creating a straightforward solution to incredibly complex problems.
Through RDC, qualifying investors can transact in digital assets using their existing technology infrastructure, workflows and counterparty relationships, resulting in a seamless investing experience. What’s more, by working with US-regulated counterparties, intermediaries and vendors for the servicing and maintenance of DRs – including Broadridge as our SEC-registered transfer agent and Anchorage as our OCC-regulated and federally chartered digital asset custodian – we offer unprecedented asset protection and risk mitigation.
The Road Ahead
Our initial offerings serve as powerful examples of our vision. Many characteristics of DRs are uniquely beneficial when it comes to digital asset investing: easy inclusion in institutional products, direct ownership and control of the asset by investors, fungibility with spot digital assets and seamless scalability. It adds up to a very useful alternative to other access products, notwithstanding recent innovations in this area.
That said, we believe digital assets are just the beginning of our journey. Our vision for DRs expands far beyond the most common digital assets – down the line, qualifying investors will work with us to create clearinghouse-eligible securities for other alternative assets and even commodities. We’re committed to achieving this vision in the right way, so we’ll be closely monitoring investor demand and regulatory stances as we eye future offerings and plot our roadmap.
We also look forward to serving as a steadfast industry resource. There is so much activity and so many misconceptions around digital and alternative assets. In this unique moment, we are committed to sitting down with qualifying investors, industry observers, the media and beyond to dive into the nuances of these markets and how RDC can help address their fundamental challenges. In doing so, we hope to foster greater understanding and innovation throughout the financial services ecosystem.
The coming weeks will be busy for us. We’ll be announcing our attendance at several industry events and actively working to grow our team and client base. We hope you’ll follow our journey as we put pen to paper on the next chapter of the digital and alternative asset investing story.
Interested in learning more about DRs as an investment vehicle? Set up a call with us today.