E-trade may begin offering Bitcoin (BTC), and Ethereum (ETH) trading to 5 million customers according to a report by Bloomberg.
This report was met with a lot of excitement among the crypto community at a time where banks and other institutions have shunned the idea. Bloomberg spoke with anonymous E-trade sources who revealed the company’s plans.
If this materializes it will definitely make E-trade one of the largest securities brokerages to provide crypto trading. E-trade would also join the likes of well-established exchanges such as Coinbase as well as Robinhood- a commission free stock trading app- becoming a natural competitor to the two.
It is unlikely that those who purchase Bitcoin or Ethereum on the platform will have the private keys to the funds themselves, with E-trade being in discussions with a third party to secure custody of user’s digital assets.
It is not clear when E-trade’s crypto trading service will launch and what the fee structure will look like. What was clear though, is the good number of excited crypto enthusiasts that were buzzing when this news broke. One such enthusiast is Richard Dennis, the founder and senior cryptography advisor of Temtum. He had this to say about E-trade’s latest move- “Seeing E-Trade introduce crypto-currency trading would bring some much needed trust at what could be perceived as a time of volatile sentiment towards crypto exchanges. Exchange adoption will offer alternative on ramps, widen audiences and diversify investor demographics, while hopefully increasing money flow into the market, but they won’t solve what consumers need to use crypto.”
Various crypto players did not hold back their excitement either.
This is a huge deal. Arguably bigger than Bakkt, ETF, Fidelity.
Etrade is the BEST way to introduce crypto to the retail masses
https://t.co/ryQXKF9D8g— Crypto Quantamental (@CryptoQF) April 27, 2019
E-trade seems to have followed the path taken by E-Toro. After the trading firm launched a crypto exchange platform known as E-ToroX, a new platform that will see the firm transition from just a social trading crypto trading product for its 10 million users, to trading crypto-currencies on its bespoke trading platform. E-trade may just follow suit if demand from its 5 million user base proves strong enough. Another firm that went a similar direction is Mobile stock trading app Robinhood, which launched crypto trading services over a year ago, and are currently about to launch an IPO.
Despite crypto enthusiast’s Richard Dennis praise of E-trade’s new move, he still believed theirs is much more to be done to spur crypto adoption.
“Unfortunately E-Trade crypto trading will not equate to, and will not lead to, the common goal of greater adoption of crypto-currencies” he said.
He feels that issues to do with scalability, speed, security and resource consumption will need to be addressed. Despite his stance, most crypto enthusiasts will still view E-trade’s move to incorporate crypto trading on their platform, as an important stride towards mass adoption.
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