Interactive Brokers Introduces Crypto Trading With No Spreads, Markups, or Custody fees.

On Monday, September 13, global brokerage firm Interactive Brokers announced launching a crypto trading facility in partnership with Paxos Trust company. As a result, the Interactive Broker Group will facilitate trading and custody of digital assets like Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH).

The brokerage firm aims to offer its customers a unified experience with crypto trading. Thus, the crypto trading facility will be available alongside other asset classes available on the platform. The facility is currently available only for U.S. residents.

A lot of traditional brokerage firms are diving into offering crypto trading facilities on their platform. The popular commission-free trading app Robinhood said that crypto trading contributed a major part of its revenues during Q2 2021. Speaking of the recent development, Milan Galik, Chief Executive Officer of Interactive Brokers said:

“As financial markets evolve, sophisticated individual and institutional investors are increasingly seeking out allocations to digital currencies as a means of achieving their financial objectives.

In 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.”

Offering A Unified Experience

Before cryptocurrencies became acceptable in the mainstream financial markets, investors had to trade on different platforms for crypto trading and traditional asset trading. Giants like Interactive Brokers and working to change the equation and offer users a unified experience.

Thus, users will be able to transact and view balances across asset classes, on a single platform. Thus, the clients of IKBR can trade crypto, stocks, bonds, futures, options, and ETFs, on a single platform.

Existing crypto exchanges and brokers charge 2.0% fees for trading along with additional markups to the price. Trading cryptocurrencies with Paxos on Interactive Brokers will attract commissions as low as 0.12% – 0.18% of trade value. This depends on the trading volume along with a fixed $1.75 USD cost per order. There will be no spreads, markups, or custody fees.