Interactive Brokers Opens $757 Billion Platform to Stablecoin Deposits

Key Insights

• Interactive Brokers shook stablecoin news today by announcing it will allow eligible US retail clients to fund brokerage accounts with stablecoins.
• The Greenwich firm managed $757.5 billion in customer equity across 4.13 million accounts as of the third quarter.
• The move positioned Interactive Brokers ahead of rivals Charles Schwab and Fidelity, which do not accept crypto deposits.

Interactive Brokers rolled out stablecoin funding for individual brokerage accounts, as Bloomberg News reported on December 12.

The feature launched with a subset of eligible US clients and marked a shift in how retail investors accessed traditional securities markets.

The announcement came as the stablecoin market cap surpassed $307 billion for the first time on December 10.

Interactive Brokers Rolls Out Stablecoin Deposits

The new capability allowed consumers to fund accounts directly from cryptocurrency wallets rather than bank accounts.

Billionaire chairman Thomas Peterffy announced the move at Goldman Sachs’s financial-services conference on December 10.

Interactive Brokers managed $757.5 billion in customer equity across 4.13 million customer accounts as of the third quarter.

The firm competes directly with Robinhood and Charles Schwab in the retail investing platform sector.

A company spokesperson confirmed that the stablecoin program would be launched incrementally, with additional details to be made public as the feature expanded to more Interactive Brokers users.

The firm bolstered its cryptocurrency trading options earlier this year alongside traditional stocks, options, and futures offerings.

Interactive Brokers also moved early into prediction markets, allowing wagers on economy-linked events.

Platform Scale Shows Stablecoin News Reaches Major Capital Pool

Interactive Brokers sat between Robinhood and Charles Schwab on comparable public metrics.

Robinhood’s third-quarter results showed roughly 27.9 million funded accounts and approximately $333 billion in total platform assets.

Charles Schwab operated on a different scale in the same period. The firm reported 38 million active brokerage accounts, 45.7 million total client accounts, and approximately $11.59 trillion in client assets.

By assets, Schwab ran about 15 times larger than Interactive Brokers and over 30 times larger than Robinhood.

Interactive Brokers held more than twice the assets Robinhood managed, but with far fewer accounts. The metrics implied far higher average balances per Interactive Brokers client.

Each firm defined client assets differently. The ordering remained clear from company disclosures: Schwab led substantially on assets under custody, while Robinhood matched Schwab on account count and far exceeded Interactive Brokers on total accounts.

Stablecoin Funding Gap Widens Among Major Brokers

Robinhood listed USDC as its primary stablecoin. The company and Circle announced the partnership in 2022, with USDC available for purchase and sale on Robinhood Crypto and in the Robinhood Wallet.

Robinhood’s current crypto transfers page showed USDC as a supported asset for on-chain deposits and withdrawals. Users moved USDC in and out of Robinhood’s crypto environment across multiple networks.

However, names such as Charles Schwab and Fidelity did not accept cryptocurrency or stablecoins as deposits in brokerage accounts as of press time.

Schwab’s materials state that the firm does not accept cryptocurrency deposits or use crypto to settle securities or futures transactions.

Fidelity’s crypto product operated in a separate environment, as standard brokerage accounts required USD funding via bank transfers.

Third-party summaries of Fidelity’s disclosures confirmed the firm did not support crypto deposits or withdrawals and settled all transactions in USD.

Interactive Brokers’ stablecoin funding capability differentiates its retail investing platform.

The feature bridges cryptocurrency wallets and traditional securities trading for the firm’s client base.

The move reflects broader integration between traditional and digital finance channels.