Archax has secured FINRA approval for its US broker-dealer subsidiary, Archax Markets LLC, completing registration with the SEC. The approval, announced on 8 September 2026, gives the UK digital asset firm a directly regulated US entity to offer private placements of traditional and tokenized securities to institutional and accredited investors. It does not make Archax Markets a national securities exchange or provide its own alternative trading system. Instead, Archax will act as an introducing broker under correspondent clearing arrangements with tZERO Securities and tZERO Digital Asset Securities, connecting clients to custody, escrow and secondary trading through tZERO's ATS.
Archax expects its US business to start during Q3 2026, which ends 30 September. The firm has not announced an exact launch date, initial securities or fees. The approval covers private placements, not a public tokenized exchange, and any offering would still need exemptions or registration. Archax can also chaperone certain non-US broker-dealer activity under SEC Rule 15a-6, providing a compliant route for overseas firms to reach qualifying US institutional investors. CEO Graham Rodford said the firm's vision remains 'global, regulated, institutional-grade access to RWAs.'
The firm has previously worked on tokenized equities, debt and money-market funds outside the US; an earlier Ripple agreement sought to bring tokenized assets to the XRP Ledger, while a more recent tZERO arrangement targeted US institutional access to Archax's tokenized treasury product. The new approval gives Archax its own regulated distribution point. The company says it now has directly regulated entities under the FCA in the UK, the CNMV in Spain and the SEC/FINRA in the US.
Separately, Arbitrum's Watchdog Committee has proposed permanently excluding three DeFi projects from future DAO programs after flagging cases involving 457,553 ARB, valued at roughly $76,000. The projects are Good Entry, Limitless and APX Finance, formerly ApolloX. Good Entry received 200,000 ARB from the Short-Term Incentives Program; investigators found 142,839 ARB went to 1,032 ineligible users, with signs of self-farming by team-linked wallets and a refusal to cooperate. The project has stopped operating.
Limitless received 75,000 ARB under the Long-Term Incentives Pilot Program, then allegedly swapped the full grant to USDC and moved it to Base. The committee called this suspected theft because the funds left the Arbitrum ecosystem and no team member could be reached. APX Finance was approved for 525,000 ARB, but the watchdog's findings concern 239,714 ARB that allegedly remained in treasury addresses, was distributed late, or involved a suspected Sybil cluster connected to team addresses.
Each project has until 10 September to respond and return disputed funds. If not, ArbitrumDAO will hold three separate Snapshot votes on permanent bans. Approved bans would not freeze wallets, remove smart contracts or restrict trading; they would make affected people and projects ineligible for future ArbitrumDAO programs. As of 2 September, the Watchdog Program had received 90 reports, recovered about 532,000 ARB and distributed roughly 268,000 ARB in rewards.
US investors have indirect exposure through Robinhood, because Robinhood Chain uses Arbitrum's Orbit software and sends 10% of net protocol revenue to the Arbitrum ecosystem under its expansion program. The governance actions remain off-chain and do not involve any referral to US authorities.
