Crypto exchange giants FTX and Bitstamp are looking to expand their services and try competing with stock trading platforms.
Brett Harrison, FTX US president tweeted out that the exchange was looking at offering “actual vanilla stocks” (as opposed to tokenized stocks) on its platform.
“We’re hard at work on stocks! Features we’re planning for day 1:
-Live BBO and historical candles
-Stock screening/search functionality
-Basic fundamentals (market cap, P/E ratio, dividend yield)
-Portfolio performance tracking, order/trade detailsWhat else should we have?”
The crypto exchange will reportedly be ready to roll out the new service in “a couple of months.” Whether FTX looks at becoming an official exchange rather than just a brokerage remains to be seen.
Bitstamp, one of the longest running crypto exchanges, is also looking at the same thing. Bitstamp chief executive officer Robert Zagotta told Bloomberg that providing stock trading would create a streamlined experience for the exchange’s users, but it’s a “very competitive space, and there are some very significant players in it,” Zagotta said. Such a move would require significant investments, so “we have to be convinced that we have a right to win in this space,” he said.
If Bitstamp follows through on its plans, Zagotta said that the firm may build the product in-house, with partners, or consider acquisitions which “can be an accelerator from a licensing perspective.”
Bloomberg said they also asked Binance if it was considering the same thing. A Binance spokesperson reportedly said it’s “going to remain laser-focused on developing leading blockchain technologies for our users and expanding into markets that more naturally compliment blockchain’s future.”
According to Motley Fool, the largest stock trading platform in the world is Charles Schwab, followed by Fidelity, Bank of America, JPMorgan, and Robinhood.
News of the crypto exchange's talks on expansion comes days after Coinbase acquired derivatives platform FairX.
