Interactive Brokers Sees Crypto Holdings Rise to $100 Million – Trustnodes

Interactive Brokers (IBKR), one of the biggest investment platform for stocks and bonds, has seen a 27% rise in crypto holdings during the first quarter of the year.

Crypto-assets held in the customers’ names with the Paxos Trust Company which executes, clears and provides custody for the crypto, rose to $109 million, IBKR said in a filing.

$66 million is held in bitcoin and $40 million in ethereum while other cryptos have attracted just $3 million.

That’s up from Q4 2022 when $80 million was held in crypto with IBKR’s total assets being about $100 billion.

The crypto part therefore is small, but this is a fairly new service with it launching at the peak of the bull in September 2021.

Almost all the way through, they’ve seen nothing but bear and yet if the market turns, their 1.5 million rich customers will have easy access to crypto.

That includes Honk Kong where IBKR has secured a license from the Hong Kong Securities & Futures Commission (“SFC”) to provide virtual asset dealing services starting in Q1 2023.

Coinbase and Galaxy Digital have also returned to profit in the first quarter as cryptos rose after almost an entire 2022 of red for Coinbase.

Its stock however, or that of IBKR, is nonetheless following the stock market movements of slight red today as a largely bear market still continues.

But the infrastructure is growing and improving, allowing for potentially an increase in future adoption.