Interactive Brokers unlocks 24/7 funding with USDC, plans to rollout Ripple and PayPal stablecoins next week
Quick Take
- Interactive Brokers, the major electronic retail and institutional brokerage, has introduced 24/7 account funding using USDC, a move that will unlock round-the-clock trading.
- “Clients can transfer funds and begin trading within minutes, while also reducing transaction costs,” CEO Milan Galik said in a statement.
- The integration is powered by Zerohash, a B2B crypto and stablecoin infrastructure provider backed by Interactive Brokers.
Interactive Brokers (Nasdaq: IBKR), a mainstay of the traditional brokerage space, will now allow traders to fund their accounts using Circle’s USDC around the clock. The move unlocks a key new feature: 24/7 trading.
According to a statement on Thursday, stablecoins are a faster, cheaper, and globally-accessible alternative to traditional funding mechanisms, like wire transfers. Moreover, they enable trading outside local business hours — “a capability traditional wire transfers cannot accommodate.”
“Stablecoin funding provides international investors with the speed and flexibility required in today’s markets,” Interactive Brokers CEO Milan Galik said in a statement. “Clients can transfer funds and begin trading within minutes, while also reducing transaction costs.”
The integration is powered by Zerohash, the B2B crypto and stablecoin infrastructure provider. Interactive Brokers first allowed retail investors to fund individual brokerage accounts with USDC in December, Bloomberg reported.
Users can send USDC from their personal crypto wallets to “a secure wallet” generated by Zerohash on Ethereum, Solana, or Base — the initially supported networks. Once received, the token “is automatically converted into U.S. dollars and credited to the client’s brokerage account.”
Zerohash, backed by Interactive Brokers, will charge a low conversion fee of 0.30% per deposit, with a minimum fee of $1, alongside standard blockchain transaction fees. Mastercard was reportedly in talks to acquire Zerohash for up to $2 billion, though the state of those negotiations is unclear.
Interactive Brokers plans to add more stablecoin options, including Ripple’s RLUSD and PayPal’s PYUSD, as early as next week. Last year, Reuters reported that Interactive Brokers was considering launching a native stablecoin.
Founded in 1978, Interactive Brokers is an electronic brokerage firm and trading platform known for its competitive, low-fee offerings. The firm first offered crypto trading and custody services in late 2021 with four assets, BTC, ETH, LTC, and BCH, through a partnership with Paxos, and expanded support to SOL, ADA, XRP, and DOGE last year.
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