The American brokerage agency, Interactive Brokers, announced that it will offer new cryptocurrency services in September 2021. Although it was not specified what type of services, this will be added to the bitcoin futures it offers on its digital platform.

The interest in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies by traditional traders motivated the digital broker to make this adoption. Interactive Brokers Chairman and CEO Thomas Peterffy said there is interest from his clients in greater adoption of virtual assets .

“Clients are certainly asking for it [cryptocurrency trading] and we hope to be ready to offer it to them by the end of the summer,” he said last Wednesday, June 9, at the Piper Sandler Global Exchange & FinTech Conference .

According to the CEO of Interactive Brokers, one of the challenges the broker will face is maintaining optimal security. «The biggest obstacle is how to keep your customers 100% safe. How can you be 100% sure that no one will steal your coins even though they cannot be traced? We will find out more about this when we open the business at the end of the summer, ”concludes Peterffy.

In addition to its wide variety of assets, Interactive Brokers already offers bitcoin futures services . Like the CME Group bitcoin microfutures , which consists of an investment of 0.1 BTC in this modality.

More than a million Interactive Brokers clients will be able to trade cryptocurrencies
The multinational company Interactive Brokers LLC, is one of the largest online brokerage firms (broker) in the United States by average number of daily operations, with more than USD 3.31 million.

According to its official portal , Interactive Brokers has a capital of USD 9 billion and has more than 1.33 million customer accounts to which it offers trading of stocks, options, futures, bonds and funds.

In this way, the broker will gain an advantage over its main competitors Fidelity and Charles Schwab, who do not allow cryptocurrency exchange directly on their platforms. Fidelity, allows Coinbase users to view their assets, but has noted on its portal that it currently has no plans to offer bitcoin futures to its clients.

Bitcoin price and its volatility, a risk for brokerage firms
The adoption of bitcoin by major brokerages like Interactive Brokers helps bring traditional brokers closer to bitcoin . On the other hand, investing in cryptocurrencies that are not regulated could represent a risk for brokerage firms due to their high volatility.

The price of bitcoin had a contraction of 44% compared to its last all-time high (ATH) on April 14, 2021 for USD 64,863.10. Two months after its ATH, this Monday, June 14, the price of bitcoin was at USD 39,765.98.