Interactive Brokers, an American multinational brokerage firm today announced they would start offering crypto trading to their clients amid growing demand reported CNBC. CME Bitcoin futures uses the underlying ticket symbol BRR starting in December 2017.
Although rival brokerage firms such as Fidelity do offer bitcoin exposure to their clients but not direct ones and depend upon other company‘s stocks that invest in Bitcoin along with Hedge funds. Interactive Broker’s entry into crypto trading with direct listing on its platform would expand crypto exposure and onboarding for many new investors.
Thomas Peterffy, CEO of Interactive Brokers said the decision was client-focused and explained,“Customers certainly are asking for [crypto trading] and we expect to be ready to offer it to them by the end of the summer,”
He added：“As for hurdles, the greatest hurdle is how do you keep you, customers, 100% safe. How do you make it 100% sure that no one will steal their coins even though they are untraceable？ We will find out more about this when we open for business at the end of the summer.”
Mainstream Institutional Giants Continue to Show Faith in Bitcoin and Crypto
The crypto market is currently going through a bearish phase since May second week that saw more than $500 billion getting wiped off the crypto market. Yesterday saw the market lose another $200 billion fueled by the FUD about the FBI‘s claims of getting access to Colonial Pipeline hacker group’s private key. Despite the dominant bearish sentiment and price bleed, institutions and mainstream asset management funds continue to show great confidence in the crypto market.
Yesterday MicroStrategy increased its proposed security debt offering from $400 million to $500 million. Earlier today, Victory Capital with over $157 billion in AUM announced its plans of entering the crypto market with a private Bitcoin fund.