EquiLend Invests in Digital Prime to Bridge TradFi and Crypto Markets

NEW YORK, NY – December 17, 2025 – Global securities finance leader EquiLend has announced a strategic investment in Digital Prime Technologies, a U.S.-regulated digital asset fintech firm, in a landmark move aimed at unifying traditional financial markets with the burgeoning world of tokenized assets. The partnership seeks to build an institutional-grade highway for digital securities and crypto financing, addressing fervent client demand for a single, governed workflow across both asset classes.

This collaboration will see the integration of EquiLend's vast securities finance infrastructure with Digital Prime’s Tokenet network, a platform designed for institutional digital asset lending. The move is a direct response to the accelerating tokenization of real-world assets and the growing pressure on financial institutions to operate seamlessly between legacy and digital systems. With an initial focus on tokenized assets, digital securities, and crypto, the partnership aims to bring the rigor and efficiency of traditional finance to the often-fragmented digital marketplace.

"As digital asset adoption accelerates, market participants increasingly expect a seamless, unified experience across traditional and digital workflows," said Rich Grossi, CEO of EquiLend, in the official announcement. "Investing in Digital Prime extends our infrastructure model to tokenized assets and digital markets, positioning us to support clients as our market structures evolves."

Integrating the Old Guard with the New Frontier

The core of the initiative lies in the technical integration of two powerful ecosystems. Digital Prime's Tokenet, which provides multi-custodian and multi-collateral life-cycle management, will be aligned with EquiLend's market-leading platforms: the NGT trading system and the 1Source post-trade solution. 1Source is itself a modern DLT-based platform designed to create a single source of truth for securities finance transactions, and this new alignment promises to extend that principle into the digital asset realm.

For institutions, this means that activity on Tokenet, from rate discovery to recalls and returns, can be aggregated and routed through EquiLend's established Data & Analytics services. The goal is to dramatically increase market transparency, automate complex workflows, and boost operational efficiency—particularly as the industry pushes towards compressed settlement cycles. This integration is designed to solve a major pain point for institutional players who currently navigate disparate systems for their traditional and digital asset financing activities.

Nick Delikaris, Chief Product Officer at EquiLend, noted the strategic value of this extension. "This investment enables us to extend EquiLend's market-leading infrastructure into tokenized assets and cryptocurrencies, delivering the same transparency, institutional rigor, and automation that our clients rely on across our core platforms," he stated.

Building Institutional Trust in a Volatile Market

Beyond technical integration, the partnership is a concerted effort to de-risk digital asset financing for institutional investors. The crypto market has been plagued by counterparty risk and a lack of regulatory clarity, which has historically kept many large financial players on the sidelines. Digital Prime Technologies was founded to address this very issue, building its solutions on the principles of traditional U.S. regulated securities markets.

The company has undergone a SOC 2 Type 1 examination to validate its security controls and operates with regulated partners like Anchorage Digital, a qualified custodian. This focus on compliance and institutional standards is a key component of the joint value proposition. By wrapping digital asset lending in a framework that mirrors the governance and transparency of traditional securities finance, EquiLend and Digital Prime are aiming to build a trusted environment for institutions to engage with this new asset class.

"Digital Prime is built around institutional standards," affirmed James Runnels, Co-Founder and CEO of Digital Prime Technologies. "EquiLend's investment and network will help us scale thoughtfully while we continue to prioritize compliance, risk management and transparency for clients."

This push for a regulated, institutional-grade solution comes as the market for tokenized assets is poised for explosive growth. Projections from firms like McKinsey & Company estimate the market for tokenized assets could reach $2 trillion by 2030, while PwC forecasts tokenized investment funds alone could surpass $317 billion by 2028. The primary drivers for this adoption are the efficiencies gained from tokenization, including faster settlement, enhanced liquidity for traditionally illiquid assets, and greater transparency.

A Strategic Play for Future Market Dominance

For EquiLend, which already facilitates trillions of dollars in securities finance transactions, this investment is a strategic maneuver to secure a leadership position in the next evolution of financial markets. Rather than waiting for the digital asset market to mature independently, the firm is actively shaping its infrastructure to ensure its dominance extends from traditional securities to their tokenized counterparts. This proactive strategy contrasts with other financial giants who are still in the pilot or exploratory phases of their digital asset initiatives.

The competitive landscape for institutional digital asset services is heating up, with both specialized crypto-native firms and traditional finance behemoths like JPMorgan making significant inroads with their own tokenization platforms. By partnering with a nimble, regulation-focused specialist like Digital Prime, EquiLend can accelerate its entry and offer a comprehensive solution that leverages its existing network of over 200 client firms.

The roadmap outlined by the partners signals a long-term vision. Future phases of the collaboration include the deployment of regulated stablecoins as collateral and the introduction of additional tokenized instruments. This aligns with broader market trends, where asset classes like mutual funds, loans, and bonds are considered the first wave of assets ripe for tokenization. As these markets develop, the integrated infrastructure provided by EquiLend and Digital Prime could become the foundational plumbing for a significant portion of institutional digital finance, cementing their role in the market structure of tomorrow.