Interactive Brokers to offer crypto trading

The broker-dealer's chairman, Thomas Peterffy, says it plans to offer trading services 'by the end of the summer' in response to customer demand.

Interactive Brokers Group Inc. is stepping deeper into cryptocurrencies with a plan to offer trading services.

“Customers certainly are asking for it, and we expect to be ready to offer it to them by the end of the summer,” Chairman Thomas Peterffy said Wednesday at Piper Sandler Cos.’s global exchange and fintech conference.

Interactive Brokers joins a growing list of payments providers and online broker-dealers that allow their customers to buy and sell cryptocurrencies, including Robinhood Markets Inc., Venmo, PayPal Holdings Inc. and Square Inc.

The announcement from Peterffy’s company comes on the same day El Salvador said it formally adopted Bitcoin as legal tender, the first country to do so, after President Nayib Bukele said Congress had approved his landmark proposal. The 39-year-old president, whose Twitter profile has a “laser eyes” picture that’s popular with devotees of cryptocurrencies, said on Twitter that lawmakers approved the legislation by a supermajority.

Interactive Brokers had previously offered customers a way to access trading in Bitcoin futures. While the move was driven by customer demand, Peterffy said there are still lingering questions about the safety of the industry.

“We will find out more about this when we open for business at the end of the summer,” he said at the conference.