tZERO vs North Capital 2026: Which Regulated Venue Actually Trades?
Two SEC-regulated alternative trading systems for private securities, compared on FINRA's weekly trade data for both venues, the audited capital of all three broker-dealers involved, and what each one actually lists. Neither company publishes its own volume. FINRA publishes both.
Guide Thesis
One group distributes what it lists. The other rents out the rails.
tZERO placed its own token and it became 96% of the venue's volume, then converted away in May. North Capital supplies the rails four other platforms distribute on, and does 26 times the trades. Strip out each venue's own paper and PPEX traded $10.1 million this year against tZERO's $89,004.
These two venues are rarely compared because only one of them is something an investor chooses. You open an account at tZERO. You arrive at North Capital's PPEX because Arrived, Masterworks, Rally or Ark7 sent you there.
What FINRA's data shows: PPEX executed 67,971 trades worth $10,116,928 in 1,259 securities through August 3, 2026. The tZERO ATS executed 2,605 trades in six securities worth $1,605,480, and $1,516,476 of that was its own TZROP token before it stopped trading in May. Both venues are also concentrated, from opposite directions: tZERO's own token was 96% of its 2025 volume and is gone, and PPEX's second-largest client, 24.1% of this year's notional, leaves in December.
Three signals that decide this
Third-Party Securities Traded, 2026
North Capital, by 114x
Excluding each venue's own paper, PPEX traded $10,116,928 and the tZERO ATS $89,004 through August 3. tZERO's headline $1.6M is 94% its own TZROP token, which stopped trading in May.
Who Supplies the Flow
Opposite designs
tZERO places the offerings it lists, and its own token was 96% of 2025 volume. PPEX lists what four platform clients bring: Arrived 56.9%, Masterworks 24.1%, Rally and RSE 9.1%, Ark7 8.6%. One controlled its supply and lost it; the other never controlled its supply at all.
Customer Assets and Capital
Different mechanisms
On the like-for-like measure, regulatory net capital, North Capital's broker-dealer holds $1,888,491 and tZERO's digital-asset custodian $635,723, both above a $250,000 minimum. The structural difference is separate: North Capital carries customer assets under Rule 15c3-3, with $18,009,043 segregated against $19,648,031 payable, while tZERO's custodian depends on a loss-making parent and warns SIPC may not apply.
Who each venue is for
Only one of these is a choice. The other is a consequence of choosing a platform that routes there.
You would use tZERO if
- → You are accredited and have underwritten a specific issuer it placed, from that issuer's own document and EDGAR file
- → You hold Aspen Digital, Curzio, EnergyFunders or the Overstock brand token, which trade nowhere else
- → You want a published investor fee schedule: 1% per trade, $0.03 a share under $3.00, no account or custody fees
- → You are an issuer wanting placement, escrow, custody, transfer agency and a listing bundled, with the fee stack itemized upfront
You end up on PPEX if
- → You bought Arrived rental-home series, Ark7 houses, Rally collectibles or (until December 2026) Masterworks art shares
- → You want the venue with actual retail transaction flow: 67,971 trades across 1,259 securities this year
- → You value a carrying broker that segregates customer cash under Rule 15c3-3 rather than an affiliate custodian with an SIPC caveat
- → You accept that your exit depends on a contract between two companies you are not party to
114x
PPEX versus the tZERO ATS on securities neither venue issued itself, 2026 to August 3
PPEX $10,116,928 across 67,971 trades. tZERO's five third-party listings: $89,004 across 547 trades. tZERO's remaining $1.5M was its own TZROP token, which stopped trading in May.
2025
The year PPEX overtook the tZERO ATS on dollar volume
PPEX led on transaction count in every published year, from 3.4x in 2022 to 26.1x in 2026. On dollars tZERO led until 2025, when PPEX traded 1.70x its notional. In 2026 it is 6.30x.
$1.89M vs $635,723
Regulatory net capital: North Capital's broker-dealer against tZERO's digital-asset custodian
Both sit above their minimums, $250,000 each. Separately, North Capital carries customer assets under Rule 15c3-3, with $18,009,043 segregated against $19,648,031 payable; tZERO DAS takes 74% of its revenue from the parent's token and warns SIPC may not apply.
96% and 24.1%
Share of venue volume tied to the major source of flow each one lost or is losing
TZROP was 96% of tZERO's 2025 notional and converted away in May 2026. Masterworks accounted for 24.1% of PPEX's 2026 notional across 405 symbols, and stops trading there on or about December 14, 2026.
Claims check
What each venue says, against what FINRA publishes
Neither operator publishes a weekly, symbol-level volume series; FINRA does, under identifiers that match neither brand. Each claim below is set against that record. The last row is AltStreet's own error, found and corrected while building this guide.
| The claim | Where it appears | What the record says |
|---|---|---|
| tZERO is "a leader among tokenized securities ATSs in the US by total trades" | tzero.com/trade | Defensible as scoped, and the scope is doing the work. Among tokenized-securities venues in 2025 tZERO did lead on trade count: 6,891 against INX's 3,813 and Securitize Markets' 864. PPEX, which tokenizes nothing, executed 80,590 trades the same year, 11.7 times as many. |
| North Capital: "$8.7B volume" and "2.6M transactions" | northcapital.com, company-stated August 2026 | Lifetime and platform-wide, covering primary raises and escrow flow, not secondary trading. The secondary venue is a different order of magnitude: FINRA shows PPEX at $34,070,166 across 518,644 trades from 2022 through the week of August 3, 2026. |
| North Capital: "625K secondary trades" | northcapital.com, company-stated August 2026 | Plausible and roughly consistent. FINRA's data records 518,644 PPEX trades from 2022 onward; the company figure is lifetime and PPEX predates FINRA's OTC Equity ATS publication, which begins in December 2021. |
| Both operators describe an "SEC-registered ATS" | tzero.com; northcapital.com; issuer filings | The broker-dealer is SEC-registered. An ATS files Form ATS, which the SEC treats as a notice rather than an application it approves, and operates under Regulation ATS. "SEC-regulated" is the accurate phrasing for the venue. |
| tZERO markets "continuous liquidity" and T+0 settlement | tzero.com/trade | The mechanism is real and the market is not. In 2026 through August 3 the venue executed 2,605 trades across six symbols, of which 2,058 were its own TZROP token before it converted away in May. The five third-party listings traded $89,004 between them across thirty-one weeks. |
| PPEX gives fractional-asset holders an exit | Platform marketing across several PPEX clients | It gives them a venue. Across 1,259 symbols and thirty-one weeks the typical security traded under twice a week at $149. And Masterworks, 24.1% of 2026 notional, has given notice that its shares stop trading there on or about December 14, 2026. |
| AltStreet's own North Capital review: "118,610 trades, $17.6M" in H1 2026 | AltStreet, August 13, 2026, corrected September 12, 2026 | Wrong, and corrected. Those figures were exactly double: re-pulling MPID PPEX for the same window returns 59,305 trades and $8,800,734, with FINRA's firm-level and symbol-level summaries reconciling to each other. The review also described roughly a third of notional as unattributable; no such bucket exists, and the dollars in question were Masterworks. |
AltStreet Terminal
Look up the symbol before you trust the venue.
Every volume figure here is FINRA's, every capital figure is from an audited broker-dealer filing, and every listing term is from an offering document. AltStreet Terminal tracks trading-venue data, filings, fee structures, redemption terms and broker-dealer capital across 100+ alternative investment platforms, so the next check you run starts from the record rather than the marketing.
Comparison hub
Head-to-head decision map
The same license, the same regulator, the same weekly filing obligation, and two businesses pointed in opposite directions.
Four dimensions separate them: who supplies the securities, what the trade data shows over five years, how customer money is held, and the concentration risk they share from opposite ends.
The same licenses, pointed in opposite directions
tZERO vs North Capital: Distribute Your Own Shelf, or Rent Out the Rails
Both operate an SEC-regulated alternative trading system through a FINRA broker-dealer, and the resemblance ends there. tZERO Group is vertically integrated: tZERO Securities is placement agent, broker of record and escrow agent on the offerings it sells, tZERO Digital Asset Securities custodies the tokens, an affiliate is the transfer agent, and the group's ATS is the only venue where any of it trades. Its own TZROP preferred token was the dominant listing until April 2026. North Capital is the opposite shape. It sells infrastructure to other platforms: escrow and investor verification for crowdfunding portals, carrying-broker custody under Rule 15c3-3, a transfer agent registered in July 2026, and the PPEX ATS where its clients' investors trade. Its parent is part-owned by Franklin Templeton, alongside founder James Dowd. The consequence shows up in what each venue lists. tZERO's ATS carried six symbols in 2026. PPEX carried 1,259, and 98.7% of the dollars came from four platforms that chose to route there.
Practical answer
If you want to buy a specific security a venue has placed, tZERO is the one with a shelf and an account you can open. If you want the venue with securities on it, PPEX is where 1,259 of them trade, and you reach it by using Arrived, Masterworks, Rally or Ark7 rather than by choosing North Capital. Neither arrangement is safer in the abstract: tZERO concentrates every role in one group that you can at least read in full, and North Capital spreads the roles across client relationships you cannot see the contracts for.
| Decision factor | What changes |
|---|---|
| Who supplies what trades | tZERO: the group places the offerings its ATS lists; TZROP, its own preferred token, was 96% of 2025 notional. North Capital: lists what platform clients bring; 98.7% of 2026 notional from Arrived, Masterworks, Rally/RSE and Ark7. |
| Symbols listed, 2026 | tZERO: 6 (TZROP, ASPD, CURZ, ENFD, XYLB, OTKNP). PPEX: 1,259. |
| How an investor arrives | tZERO: opens an account at platform.tzero.com and subscribes or trades directly. North Capital: never chooses it; reaches PPEX through a platform that routes there. |
| Regulated entities | tZERO: broker-dealer and ATS operator, special purpose broker-dealer custodian, transfer agent, exempt reporting adviser, CFTC introducing broker. North Capital: carrying broker-dealer and PPEX operator, capital-acquisition broker, transfer agent (TA-1, July 2026), RIA with $365.8M, a $100.6M money market fund. |
| Ownership | tZERO Group: Beyond, Inc. 22% direct and 38.7% combined, ICE a significant minority. North Capital parent NCIT: James Dowd 25-50%, Franklin Templeton's FT Fintech Holdings 25-50% with disclosed management influence. |
FINRA publishes both; neither venue does
tZERO vs North Capital: The Crossover Happened in 2025
Both venues report weekly to FINRA's OTC Transparency program, tZERO under the identifier PROS and North Capital under PPEX, and neither publishes the data itself. The series is unambiguous. PPEX has executed more transactions than tZERO in every published year, from 3.4 times as many in 2022 to 26.1 times in 2026. On dollars, tZERO led until 2025. Its notional went $28.9 million in 2022, $9.5 million in 2023, $6.0 million in 2024, $5.9 million in 2025 and $1.6 million in 2026 through August 3, a 94% decline from the peak. PPEX went $4.3 million, $4.9 million, $4.8 million, $9.9 million and $10.1 million over the same years, which means 2026 is already its largest year with five months still to report. The crossover was 2025, when PPEX traded 1.70 times tZERO's dollars. In 2026 it is 6.30 times. The fairest single comparison strips each venue's own paper out: PPEX's $10.1 million is all third-party securities, while tZERO's third-party listings traded $89,004 between them, a ratio of about 114 to 1.
Practical answer
Read the trend rather than the level. tZERO's decline is not mainly a market verdict on its third-party listings, which were always small; it is the arithmetic of losing a token that was 96% of its volume. PPEX's rise is not mainly a verdict on North Capital either; it is four platforms sending more investors to the same venue. In both cases the venue is downstream of who supplies it, which is the thing to check before you rely on either for an exit.
| Decision factor | What changes |
|---|---|
| 2022 | tZERO $28,882,211 / 33,064 trades. PPEX $4,258,806 / 112,787 trades. tZERO leads dollars 6.8x; PPEX leads trades 3.4x. |
| 2024 | tZERO $5,982,150 / 7,136. PPEX $4,842,607 / 114,980. tZERO leads dollars 1.2x; PPEX leads trades 16.1x. |
| 2025 (crossover) | tZERO $5,851,828 / 6,891. PPEX $9,921,175 / 80,590. PPEX leads dollars 1.7x and trades 11.7x. |
| 2026 to Aug 3 | tZERO $1,605,480 / 2,605. PPEX $10,116,928 / 67,971. PPEX leads dollars 6.3x and trades 26.1x. |
| Excluding the operator's own paper | tZERO third-party listings 2026: $89,004 across 547 trades. PPEX: $10,116,928 across 67,971. Ratio about 114x. |
| Lifetime and average | tZERO since 2021: $54,569,904 across 62,924 trades, average $867. PPEX since 2022: $34,070,166 across 518,644 trades, average $66. |
A carrying broker with segregated customer cash, against two small affiliates
tZERO vs North Capital: Custody, Capital and Who Stands Behind It
This is where the two firms are least alike and where the comparison matters most, because it is about your money rather than your exit. North Capital Private Securities is a carrying broker-dealer under Rule 15c3-3, a model most firms of its size outsource to a large clearing house. Its audited fiscal year ended March 31, 2026 shows $18,009,043 segregated for customers against $19,648,031 payable to them, total assets of $22.5 million, equity of $2.4 million, net capital of $1,888,491 against a $250,000 minimum, an undrawn $20 million parent revolver, and roughly $1.14 million of pre-tax profit after a small loss the prior year. tZERO splits the job across two affiliates and both are small in absolute terms: tZERO Securities ended 2025 with $521,737 of net capital, $271,737 above its minimum, on $418,088 of revenue; tZERO Digital Asset Securities, the special purpose broker-dealer that holds the wallets and private keys for digital asset securities, held $635,723, or $385,723 above its minimum, on $204,121 of revenue. Forty percent and 74% of those revenues respectively came from the parent's own TZROP token, and both audits state the firms are economically dependent on the parent for funding. That parent's last public audited statements, for 2023, show $1.63 million of revenue against a $29.5 million net loss, with a going-concern note.
Practical answer
Neither firm has had a customer-asset failure and both were above their regulatory minimums at their last audit, so this is a question of cushion and backing rather than of compliance. North Capital's customer-money operation is roughly thirty times larger than the capital at tZERO's custodian and is backed by a profitable operating entity with a Franklin Templeton co-owner. tZERO's is backed by a parent that has never been profitable and warns, in its custodian's Form CRS, that SIPC protections may not apply to digital asset securities. Where an issuer permits self-custody or a third-party custodian for a tokenized security, that is the option worth using.
| Decision factor | What changes |
|---|---|
| Customer asset model | North Capital: 15c3-3 carrying broker, $18,009,043 segregated against $19,648,031 payable (FY ended 3/31/26). tZERO: self-clearing for conventional securities; digital asset securities carried by an affiliate that controls wallets and keys. |
| Net capital | NCPS $1,888,491 against a $250,000 minimum. tZERO Securities $521,737 (excess $271,737); tZERO Digital Asset Securities $635,723 (excess $385,723). |
| Profitability | NCPS roughly $1.14M pre-tax in FY2026 after a small FY2025 loss. tZERO Group's last public audit (FY2023): $1.63M revenue, $29.5M net loss, going-concern note; FY2024 and FY2025 not public. |
| Revenue concentration | tZERO: 40% and 74% of the two broker-dealers' 2025 revenue from the parent's own TZROP token; both disclose economic dependence on the parent. North Capital: revenue split across escrow, technology, carrying, RIA and fund lines; no single-client concentration disclosed. |
| Investor protection caveats | tZERO DAS Form CRS: SIPA protections may not apply to digital asset securities. North Capital: conventional carrying-broker customer protection under 15c3-3. |
The risk each venue shares, arriving from opposite directions
tZERO vs North Capital: Both Are Concentrated, From Opposite Directions
The closest thing to a shared lesson between these two venues is concentration, though it is not symmetrical. tZERO's ATS was 96% TZROP by notional in 2025. In April 2026 holders approved converting that token into Series B preferred and common stock, surrendering a $10 redemption floor and continuous trading; it last traded the week of May 4, and the week after, the entire venue reported 32 shares, 7 trades and $20.40. The dominant listing left because the operator restructured its own security. PPEX faces the same arithmetic from the other side. Masterworks was 24.1% of its 2026 dollar volume, 405 symbols and 8,111 trades. On June 17, 2026 Masterworks delivered written notice terminating the agreements under which its Class A shares trade on PPEX, effective on or about December 14, 2026, and its Form 1-U filings state that holders will not be able to buy or sell through the venue afterwards and that no assurance can be given that any replacement will provide comparable liquidity, or any liquidity at all. The asymmetry matters. tZERO's dependence was extreme and internally generated, and the security that carried it is gone. North Capital's is ordinary client concentration: Masterworks is its second-largest source of flow, not its largest, and Arrived at 56.9% stays.
Practical answer
Ask the same question of both before relying on either. On tZERO: what is the venue's volume once you exclude the operator's own paper, and does the token you are buying have any committed listing at all, given that offering documents say an issuer only "may" seek one. On PPEX: does your platform's agreement with North Capital survive into 2027, because Masterworks' did not, and the notice period was six months. A venue is infrastructure supplied by a commercial relationship, not a market that exists on its own.
| Decision factor | What changes |
|---|---|
| Dominant listing | tZERO: TZROP, 96% of 2025 notional, converted away May 2026. PPEX: Arrived at 56.9% of 2026 notional, Masterworks second at 24.1%. |
| The loss event | tZERO: the operator's own consent solicitation converted the token into preferred and common stock. PPEX: Masterworks gave termination notice June 17, 2026, effective on or about December 14, 2026. |
| Aftermath so far | tZERO: the week after TZROP stopped, the venue reported 32 shares and $20.40; weeks since run 63 to 3,917 shares. PPEX: Masterworks still trading; the effect lands in December. |
| What the filings promise | tZERO offering documents: an issuer "may" seek an ATS listing, with no assurance. Masterworks Form 1-U: intends to arrange a bulletin board or matching service, with no assurance of "liquidity comparable to that historically available through the PPEX ATS, or any liquidity at all." |
| What to watch | tZERO: whether any of the four current offerings reports a sale, and the FY2026 FOCUS reports in March 2027, the first year without TZROP revenue. North Capital: PPEX weekly volume after December 14, 2026, and whether Arrived's share grows or its agreement is renewed. |
Primary-data deep dives
Volume for both venues comes from FINRA's OTC Transparency weekly ATS files, MPID PROS for tZERO and PPEX for North Capital, aggregated by AltStreet from 2021 through the week beginning August 3, 2026, with symbol-level pulls paginated and reconciled against the firm-level totals. The tZERO figures on capital, fees, offerings and the TZROP conversion are documented in the AltStreet tZERO review. The North Capital figures on custody, capital, profitability, ownership and the FINRA settlement are documented in the AltStreet North Capital review, whose own PPEX statistics were corrected on September 12, 2026 after this aggregation found them to be double-counted. The Masterworks termination, which ends trading for a client responsible for 24.1% of PPEX's 2026 notional, is documented in AltStreet's coverage of the Form 1-U disclosures. The ten-venue context sits in AltStreet's census of every US private-securities ATS. Company-stated figures are labeled as such throughout and are not like-for-like with FINRA's.
Scenario Analysis
What selling actually looks like on each venue
Illustrative, under each venue's disclosed terms and its own FINRA-reported activity as of September 2026. The position sizes differ because the venues serve different investors: a $5,000 stake spread across fractional series on PPEX, and a $10,000 minimum subscription on tZERO's current shelf.
North Capital PPEX (Arrived series, $5,000)
- You never opened an account with North Capital: you bought through Arrived, which routes secondary trading to PPEX
- Your series is one of 1,259 symbols; the typical one trades under twice a week at an average of $149, so the venue-wide average suggests a $5,000 exit may need multiple fills or patience
- Arrived series are 56.9% of venue volume, which means your symbol sits in the busiest cohort on the busiest venue in the category
- Your cash sits with a 15c3-3 carrying broker holding $18.0M segregated against $19.6M payable
- Shape: a real venue with real transaction flow, thin per security, and dependent on a contract between Arrived and North Capital
tZERO (a placed token, $10,000 minimum)
- You opened an account at platform.tzero.com and paid a non-refundable processing fee of up to 7% per commitment
- Listing is not promised: offering documents say the issuer may seek an ATS listing, subject to onboarding, with no assurance
- If listed, you sell at 1% commission into a venue whose five third-party listings traded $89,004 between them across thirty-one weeks
- Your token is carried by an affiliate with $635,723 of net capital whose Form CRS warns SIPC may not apply; self-custody is permitted for some securities
- Shape: every fee disclosed in advance, every risk written down, and almost no counterparty on the other side
The shape of this comparison: PPEX gives you frequency without depth, and tZERO gives you neither unless you hold one of its handful of listings. On both, the honest planning assumption is that you hold the position to whatever the issuer eventually does with it, and treat any sale on the venue as a bonus rather than a plan.
tZERO vs North Capital: every question we could find searchers asking
Short answer
A venue you can open an account with, whose six listings traded $1.6 million this year, 94% of it the operator's own token before it converted away in May: tZERO, with a published fee schedule, a bundled placement and custody stack, and a shelf of pre-revenue issuers. A venue you cannot choose, reached through Arrived, Masterworks, Rally or Ark7, that executed 67,971 trades in 1,259 securities and segregates $18.0 million of customer cash as a carrying broker: North Capital's PPEX, whose second-largest client leaves in December. Both: the venue is downstream of whoever supplies it, and neither one is a reason to buy a security.
Is tZERO or North Capital the better place to trade private securities?＋
They are not alternatives you choose between, which is the first thing to understand. tZERO is a venue you can open an account with and trade on directly. North Capital is business-to-business plumbing: you reach its PPEX ATS only because a platform you already use, such as Arrived or Masterworks, routes its secondary trading there. On measured activity the gap is wide. In 2026 through the week of August 3, PPEX traded $10,116,928 across 67,971 transactions in 1,259 securities. The tZERO ATS traded $1,605,480 across 2,605 transactions in 6 securities, and $1,516,476 of that was tZERO's own TZROP token before it converted away in May. Strip out the operator's own security and tZERO's third-party listings traded $89,004 all year, against PPEX's $10.1 million. For securities a venue did not issue itself, PPEX trades roughly 114 times as much.
How much does the tZERO ATS trade compared to PPEX?＋
PPEX has had more transactions than tZERO in every year FINRA has published this data, and overtook it on dollars in 2025. By notional: 2022 tZERO $28.9M against PPEX $4.3M; 2023 $9.5M against $4.9M; 2024 $6.0M against $4.8M; 2025 $5.9M against $9.9M, the crossover; 2026 through August 3, $1.6M against $10.1M. By transaction count PPEX led 3.4 to 1 in 2022 and 26.1 to 1 in 2026. Cumulatively since 2021 tZERO has still traded more dollars, $54.6 million against PPEX's $34.1 million, because of a single strong year in 2022. The averages explain the shape: tZERO's lifetime average trade is $867, PPEX's is $66.
What is the structural difference between the two venues?＋
Who supplies the securities. tZERO is vertically integrated: the same group places the offering, acts as broker of record and escrow agent, custodies the token, keeps the register as transfer agent and operates the only venue where it trades. Its ATS listed its own TZROP preferred token, which was 96% of the venue's 2025 notional. North Capital is horizontal: it operates escrow, custody and the venue for other companies' offerings and lists what those clients bring. In 2026, 98.7% of PPEX's dollar volume came from four platforms AltStreet reviews separately, Arrived at 56.9%, Masterworks at 24.1%, Rally and RSE at 9.1% and Ark7 at 8.6%. One model controls its own supply and lost it. The other does not control its supply and depends on relationships it cannot renew unilaterally.
How does each venue hold and protect customer assets?＋
They operate at different scales and under different rules, so compare the mechanism rather than the brand. North Capital Private Securities is a carrying broker-dealer under Exchange Act Rule 15c3-3: at its March 31, 2026 fiscal year end it held $18,009,043 segregated for customers against $19,648,031 payable to them, with $1,888,491 of net capital against a $250,000 minimum, and reported roughly $1.14 million of pre-tax profit. tZERO splits the function: tZERO Securities self-clears conventional securities with $521,737 of net capital, and the affiliate that carries digital asset securities, tZERO Digital Asset Securities, held $635,723. Both tZERO entities disclose economic dependence on a parent whose last public audit carried a going-concern note, and the custodian's Form CRS warns that SIPC protections may not apply to digital asset securities. Neither firm has had a customer-asset failure. The difference is the size of the cushion and who stands behind it.
Do either of them have a regulatory record?＋
Both, and both are resolved. The SEC censured tZERO ATS in January 2022 for willfully violating Regulation ATS by sharing order-book information with two third parties without timely Form ATS disclosure and operating without written fair-access standards, with an $800,000 penalty; it is the only disclosure on the broker-dealer's BrokerCheck record. FINRA censured North Capital Private Securities in August 2024 and fined it $40,000 for 92 late Rule 5123 private-placement filings, averaging 163 days late, together with Rule 2210 communications violations including language that implied a FINRA endorsement. The tZERO matter went to how the venue itself operated. The North Capital matter went to filing discipline and marketing content.
What can I buy on each venue?＋
On tZERO, directly: four current offerings at the time of writing, a solar-credit revenue token, a Swiss gaming token, a preferred stock whose own offering memorandum says the company may go out of business without the raise, and a Regulation A+ mining-services offering listed as inactive. Six of its sixteen offering cards have no SEC filing under the name on the card. On North Capital, nothing directly: you buy Arrived rental-home series, Masterworks art shares, Rally collectibles or Ark7 houses from those platforms, and PPEX is where the shares can later change hands. That is the practical difference for an investor. tZERO asks you to underwrite an issuer it placed. North Capital asks you to underwrite nothing, because you never chose it.
Is PPEX liquidity dependable?＋
It is the most active venue in the category by transaction count and it is still thin per security. Divide 67,971 trades across 1,259 symbols and thirty-one weeks and the typical symbol trades under two times a week, at an average of $149. More importantly, that volume is a function of client relationships. Masterworks, 24.1% of 2026 PPEX dollar volume, notified North Capital on June 17, 2026 that it was terminating the agreements under which its shares trade there, effective on or about December 14, 2026. Its filings say holders will not be able to buy or sell through the venue afterwards and that no assurance can be given that a replacement will provide comparable liquidity, or any. A client responsible for 24.1% of this year's notional is scheduled to leave on six months' notice.
Who should use tZERO, and who ends up on PPEX?＋
Use tZERO if you are an accredited investor who has underwritten a specific issuer it has placed, from that issuer's own offering document and EDGAR record, and you need a licensed US venue to subscribe and custody through, or if you already hold one of the handful of tokens that trade nowhere else. Expect to hold it. You end up on PPEX by choosing Arrived, Masterworks, Rally or Ark7, in which case the thing to check is not North Capital but whether your specific series prints in FINRA's weekly data and whether your platform's agreement with the venue survives into 2027. Neither venue is a reason to buy a security, and on both the question that decides your exit is what the security is worth according to something other than the last trade on the venue.
Final read
Final Verdict
tZERO and North Capital hold the same kind of license and built opposite businesses on it. tZERO placed the securities it listed, custodied them, registered them and traded them, and for years the thing it traded most was its own preferred token. When holders converted that token away in April 2026, the venue went from $5.9 million of annual notional to reporting 32 shares and $20.40 in a single week. North Capital sold the plumbing instead: escrow, carrying custody, a transfer agent and a venue, to platforms that bring their own investors. It has executed more transactions than tZERO in every year FINRA has published, overtook it on dollars in 2025, and now trades 26 times the transactions and 6.3 times the notional. On securities neither venue issued itself, the gap is about 114 to 1.
Neither result is really a verdict on the operator, which is the useful thing to take from it. Both venues are downstream of whoever supplies them, and both are learning it the same way. tZERO lost 96% of its volume because it restructured its own security. North Capital is about to lose a client responsible for 24.1% of its 2026 year-to-date notional, because Masterworks gave six months' notice and is leaving in December. If you are deciding where to hold something, weigh the custody arrangement rather than a single number. On net capital the two are closer than the rhetoric suggests, $1,888,491 against $635,723, both above the same $250,000 minimum. What differs is what stands behind them: North Capital carries customer assets under Rule 15c3-3, segregating $18.0 million, and is a profitable entity part-owned by Franklin Templeton, while tZERO's custodian takes three quarters of its revenue from the parent's own token and warns that SIPC may not apply. If you are deciding whether you can sell, look up your symbol in FINRA's weekly file rather than either company's marketing, because neither publishes it and both have more flattering things to say.
tZERO wins on
Published fee schedules on both the investor and issuer side, a bundled stack an issuer can buy in one place, closed-deal documents kept online, two audited broker-dealer balance sheets a year, and being the only regulated venue for the handful of tokens listed there.
North Capital wins on
Measured activity by a wide margin, 1,259 securities against six, a 15c3-3 carrying model with $18.0M segregated for customers, a profitable operating entity with a Franklin Templeton co-owner, and a venue whose flow comes from clients rather than from itself.
The Primary Sources Behind This Guide
Both records, documented from FINRA trading data, audited broker-dealer filings and offering documents.
tZERO Full Review
FINRA weekly data by symbol, both broker-dealers' FOCUS reports, the 163-page TZROP consent solicitation, the parent's Rule 3-09 audited statements, the 2022 SEC order, and the offering documents behind all sixteen listed deals.
North Capital Full Review
Six regulated entities, the audited carrying-broker balance sheet, BrokerCheck ownership schedules, the 2024 FINRA settlement, the money market fund and RIA books, and the corrected PPEX venue data.
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