The US arm of cryptocurrency giant FTX is opening up to equity trading. While we’re more used to seeing institutional investors get into crypto-currencies, the platform is opting to diversify against the trend with its new product: FTX Stocks.
Following crypto-currencies, FTX tackles stocks
The cryptocurrency trading platform FTX is opening its services to the stock market for its US customers. It will therefore be possible for FTX.US users to trade Nasdaq stocks without commissions initially:
Crypto exchange https://t.co/tUryXJeM24 to offer zero-commission stock trading https://t.co/WBVQE7hN8G
– FTX (@FTX_Official) May 20, 2022
This new feature is driven by a bias that investors would like to have access to all of their assets in one place, as described by Bret Harrisson, president of FTX.US:
If they want to invest in stocks, they won’t want to have to split their savings between two different applications, or move money between two different accounts. They would like to be able to […] invest in multiple asset classes from one app and one experience. “
To make this possible, the platform will use the services of Embed, a company that specialises in API connections, which allows its clients’ orders to be sent directly to marketplaces. It is also possible that these new services will also include other financial vehicles such as futures in the future.
An FTX Stocks account can be topped up not only with traditional fiat currencies by wire transfer, but also with collateralised stablecoins such as
A trend taken against the grain
For a little over a year now, we’ve become accustomed to seeing traditional finance companies enter the cryptocurrency market, but this diversification by FTX bucked the trend. Here we have a company that originated in the blockchain world opening up to traditional finance.
Sam Bankman-Fried’s (SBF) creation is thinking big and taking a risky gamble, all the more so with an attractive introductory price, consisting of free trading fees.
As Bret Harrisson points out, FTX is aware that it will not be profitable for it to take on the costs of trading the shares. But this serves a long-term vision of building user loyalty through a rich catalogue of services:
To start with, this is not going to be a profitable venture for us. Our goal is to be able to add this additional service for our customers to strengthen our existing business. “
As we learned last week that SBF was becoming Robinhood’s third largest shareholder, some rumours are starting to emerge, following these two pieces of news, about a possible merger of the companies. However, this is currently a matter of speculation. However, the fact is that FTX is now adopting a global strategy towards investment in its various forms
