FTX US Launched Stock Trading, Accounts Can Get Funded With Stablecoin

FTX US launched stock trading options and the accounts can get funded with stablecoins, making the exchange the first of its kind to offer these equities for US customers so let’s read more today in our latest cryptocurrency news.

FTX US launched stock trading and will allow users to fund their accounts with USDC. The customers will be able to buy stocks and ETFs in the crypto app. The offering is being rolled out to select customers from a waitlist and the exchange even announced that customers can trade stocks and ETFs and making it the first native exchange to offer equities on the platform. The new product that the company was testing for months is dubbed FTX Stocks and will allow users to fund their accounts with the USDC Stablecoin but also bank transfers.

For now, FTX Stocks will be available to a number of customers from a selected waitlist but the company still expects to roll out to all users by mid-summer. The exchange said that the offering will include no-fee brokerage accounts commission-less trading and fractional shares and that it will require no minimum account balance In order to start trading. Such offerings brign to mind Robinhood which was the pioneer for most features in the stock trading world and was expanding the offerings. The similarities are notable given that the owner of the FTX US parent company Sam Baknman Fried disclosed that he acquire about 8% of the shares and touched off rumors that a merger or acquisition could be in the works.

The FTX US President Brett Harrison described the investment as passive but also praised the success of the company and offered both crypto and stocks implying that the fTX interest will not be passive in the long run. In the meantime, the FTX US says its offering will not earn the company money from the payment for order flow which was a cornerstone of Robinhood’s model for the past two years. PFOF involved bundling customer orders together and routing them to a third-party market maker like Citadel Securities that executes the order and pays a fee for doing so. Some argue that the practice helps small traders by allowing them to benefit from bulk order pricing and critics portrayed PFOF as unfair or sneaky.

PFOF seems off the table for now as Harrison said FTX USD is not seeking to make profits from the stock feature but he said that it will serve as a complement to the company’s crypto offerings while helping them to attract more customers.