Interactive Brokers (IBKR), one of the biggest and oldest stock trading terminal, has launched spot bitcoin trading in addition to eth, litecoin and bitcoin cash.<\/p>\n
The service is currently limited to US customers and is offered through the Paxos Trust Company with it charging a fee of just 0.12% – 0.18% of trade value, depending on monthly volume. <\/p>\n
The company says there are no added spreads, markups, or custody fees, making this similar to trading on Coinbase.<\/p>\n
There doesn’t appear to be an option to withdraw the crypto, however, but they say actual custody is through Paxos with this being spot trading of actual bitcoins, rather than a derivative.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs financial markets evolve, sophisticated individual and institutional investors are increasingly seeking out allocations to digital currencies as a means of achieving their financial objectives,\u201d said Milan Galik, Chief Executive Officer at Interactive Brokers, before adding:<\/p>\n
\u201cIn giving our clients access to cryptocurrency trading, we recognize the need to meet the growing investor demand to trade cryptocurrency alongside other asset classes in a convenient and low-cost way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although previously you could buy bitcoin through European ETNs or Canadian ETFs, the option to now buy it directly for US customers through a stocks account can make it cheaper and with less counterparty risks.<\/p>\n
The broker itself has some 1.5 million customer with an average of $250,000 in assets, making it some $375 billion that can now more easily access bitcoin.<\/p>\n
That’s some three times higher than Robinhood which has 22.5 million customers, but each manages just $5,000 on average, giving a total of some $112 billion.<\/p>\n
One needs to request permission to trade crypto however just as initially you’d need permission to trade stocks, but that’s usually granted.<\/p>\n
So making this one of the biggest established and well known broker to open access to cryptos as bitcoin’s adoption continues to increase.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n