According to news reports from FTX.US, it has opened up stock-trading services to select customers.
FTX.US has allowed beta access to FTX Stocks, which will be offered through its trading app to a select waitlisted users. The offering will be expanded to the entire platform over the next month, according to FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.
The service offers selected eligible customers the opportunity to invest in hundreds of stocks, ETFs, and other securities. Clients will also have access to fractional share trading in some cases in order to ensure fair pricing. FTX.US will route orders through Nasdaq and will not receive payment for order flow.
On Twitter, Bankman-Fried commented that the company earns “nothing” and that the “goal is just to give customers a great experience.”
3) We're opening stock trading with no Payment for Orderflow and no fees.
So what do we make from it?
Nothing. And that's ok. Our goal is just to give customers a great experience.
— SBF (@SBF_FTX) May 19, 2022
Furthermore, FTX.US president Brett Harrison said that the service is part of the company’s plans to increase its scope and “offer a holistic investing service for our customers across all asset classes” including cryptocurrency, NFTs, and traditional stocks.
FTX.US is the eleventh-largest crypto exchange, with $250 million in trading volume over 24 hours. Its international counterpart is larger, with a $3 billion volume over the same period.
Competition is heating up.
Though FTX.US is the first cryptocurrency exchange to offer stock trading, it will compete with Robinhood and eToro, two popular retail stock trading platforms that also offer cryptocurrency features.
FTX Stocks will offer some features that will help the company compete against those rival services. In particular, it will have no minimum balance requirements, no tiered service levels, commission-less trading, and fee-less accounts.
It will also allow users to fund their brokerage accounts with the USDC stablecoin, a feature currently available nowhere else.
Despite FTX.US being the first centralized crypto exchange to offer stocks, some DeFi platforms like Synthetix offer synthetic assets—or crypto tokens tied to stocks. As such, there are already niche options for investors who are not on FTX.US’s waitlist.
