The American arm of the global cryptocurrency exchange, FTX, has unveiled a stock trading service. It is a commission-free service for all the platform’s users in the United States.
Creating Trading Convenience
FTX US initially made the stock trading service available to a small group of FTX US clients. Those clients were actually onboarded to trade cryptocurrencies on the platform as it offers. Stock trading is now available to those who don’t trade crypto at all throughout the US.
Crypto exchanges’ entrance into stock markets and trading is billed to have an overwhelming effect. For one, it will extend the exchanges’ customer base as well as increase assets under their management.
FTX US President, Brett Harrison, stated that opening the records to see how many users started to trade stocks on FTX US will be interesting. He also said the extent to which new users will join in will be equally interesting to watch. Harrison spoke with Bloomberg during a recent interview.
FTX said it offers to trade on stocks listed in the US, Exchange Traded Funds, as well as depository receipts. It is currently offering stocks of 50 high-demand US companies such as Tesla and Apple. Others include PayPal, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, and a host of other US giant companies.
More Trading Choices in the Future
But FTX US is not going to stop at this juncture. The platform says it has other plans to offer options trading. However, there is no information on when that service will be launched.
FTX founder and Chief Executive, Sam Bankmann-Fried, bought a 7.6% stake in Robinhood. Robinhood offers a free retailing stock-trading platform. It has gone ahead to disrupt the whole business model of the industry since its launch.
There have been reports flying around about a planned Robinhood acquisition by FTX. Bankmann-Fried, however, refuted any such claims of a prospective merger.
Whereas, FTX US has consolidated its position in the stock-trading sector. It acquired Embed Financial Technologies which is the parent firm of Embed Clearing, a clearing firm.
FTX’s venture to acquire Voyager hedge fund, after the latter filed for bankruptcy, went bust. Voyager turned down FTX’s offer on the ground that it did not sufficiently cater to the interest of certain investors. Voyager’s lawyers took it to a moral ground and said the deal was a selfish one that cared only about FTX’s interests.