Brokerage firm Interactive Brokers plans to provide cryptocurrency trading opportunities to its clients by September this year.
This was announced by Interactive Brokers Chairman and CEO Thomas Peterffy at the Piper Sandler Global Exchange & FinTech conference. He said that Interactive Brokers customers have asked the company to do so, so it is ready to provide them with access to cryptocurrencies by the end of the summer.
Peterfi noted that retail and institutional investors have poured “tons of money” into digital assets this year. Even with the high volatility of cryptocurrencies and the recent market crash, traders are still interested in Bitcoin and other digital assets.
According to data for the first quarter of 2021, Interactive Brokers has a user base of more than 1.33 million people, and the company manages more than $ 330 billion. Peterfi did not specify which cryptocurrencies the company will provide access to. However, Interactive Brokers intends to explore how best to mitigate the risks associated with cryptocurrencies and to ensure that client funds are completely secure.
“One of the main tasks is to ensure the safety of our clients. How can you be 100% sure that no one will steal their digital assets, given that they are difficult to trace? We will get a clearer picture of this when we open up cryptocurrency trading at the end of the summer, ”Peterfi said.
In 2017, the platform allowed clients to short Bitcoin futures, but Peterfi expressed doubts about the viability of this initiative. Earlier, he said that governments should allow people to freely trade cryptocurrencies, while they should not be “tied” to the real economy.
We would like to remind that last week the Central Bank of Russia put the broker Interactive Brokers on the “black list” of firms that illegally operate in the Russian Federation.
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