Bill Cara

Cryptocurrency trading for FAs announced at Interactive Brokers

Dear Financial Advisor,

 

We are pleased to announce that IBKR has expanded our Cryptocurrency product offering to Financial Advisors and their clients. Like all of our offerings, you will be able to trade Cryptocurrency related products together with stocks, options, futures, spot currencies, bonds, and funds from a unified IBKR platform. Trade execution and custody are provided by Paxos Trust Company, but you will be able to seamlessly access Cryptocurrency markets through your favorite IBKR trading application.

 

IBKR wants to make you aware of important considerations before you start trading:

  • Markups and allocations are currently unavailable for Crypto trading. However, IBKR is working on this functionality, and it will be provided by the end of the year. Until allocation functionality is in place, only direct allocation to a single account will be supported.
  • For your new clients, only fully electronic applications will have the ability to request Cryptocurrency permissions.
  • Advisors will need to request the capability to “Advise in Cryptocurrency” for their clients within their Advisor Portal.  Please visit our FAQs for specific instructions on requesting the capability. Once you’ve been approved for that capability, your client subaccounts will be able to see the Cryptocurrency trading permission and request it in Account Management.  Each client sub-account must separately request Cryptocurrency permissions, and sign the appropriate agreements before you can trade cryptocurrencies in that sub-account.
  • Advisor clients with conservative investment objectives, such as Preservation of Capital or Income, are limited to 5% of their account value in cryptocurrency (which will be enforced at the time of placing opening orders in crypto).
  • Due to the inherent risk in trading Cryptocurrency related products, clients of advisors will be notified directly after the first trade occurs in their account and new clients will be notified if their account is opened with Cryptocurrency capabilities.
  • Trading hours for cryptocurrencies are from 3 AM EST Sunday to 4 PM EST Friday. The regular trading session is from 00:00 to 17:00 EST, and the “late” trading session is from 17:00:01 to 00:00 EST. Trades occurring in the “late” session will appear on the next day’s statement.
  • There are unique rules that apply to buy orders for cryptocurrency on IBKR platforms. Prices that are too far from the current best offer will not be accepted and Time in force is limited to “immediate or cancel” or “minutes”.  Time in force “minutes” means orders will be canceled after a set duration, which is currently 5 minutes.
  • Cryptocurrency trading is currently limited to U.S. resident clients who have an individual or joint account.