Interactive Brokers
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How Interactive Brokers Launched Institutional-Grade Crypto Trading in 12 Weeks Using zerohash Infrastructure
Interactive Brokers (NASDAQ: IBKR) is a global brokerage serving sophisticated investors across equities, options, futures, and fixed income. With more than 50 million Americans invested in crypto and over 600 million users worldwide, IBKR sought to unify crypto and traditional assets within one institutional-grade trading platform. The goal: deliver a professional crypto trading experience that matches the sophistication of equities markets while maintaining regulatory discipline.
OPPORTUNITY
Delivering Pro-Level Crypto at Brokerage Scale
Crypto adoption has accelerated, but many retail offerings lack the execution quality, order flexibility, and transparency professional traders expect. IBKR needed to offer crypto trading that met its core standards: market, limit, and stop-limit orders, multiple expiry types, deep liquidity, and full market depth.
Building a compliant crypto brokerage stack internally would require years of regulatory lift, liquidity sourcing, custody infrastructure, trade lifecycle management, and compliance oversight across U.S. jurisdictions. IBKR needed infrastructure capable of supporting institutional execution standards while preserving its unified trading interface and global footprint.
SOLUTION
Enterprise CLOB and Full-Stack Brokerage Infrastructure
Interactive Brokers integrated zerohash’s enterprise-grade Central Limit Order Book (CLOB), custody, liquidity, and compliance stack via FIX 5.0. zerohash provides regulated brokerage infrastructure across 50+ U.S. jurisdictions, including 49 Money Transmitter Licenses and a NYDFS BitLicense.
The platform manages execution, settlement, custody, compliance monitoring, and liquidity aggregation within one framework. IBKR clients now access market, limit, and stop-limit orders with real-time execution and full order book transparency. Liquidity providers operate under service-level standards designed to maintain orderly markets and tight spreads. Broad asset coverage includes BTC, ETH, SOL, ADA, XRP, DOGE, LTC, and BCH, with flexibility to expand further as client demand evolves. Flexible monetization structures support configurable spreads by asset.
OUTCOME
Accelerated Launch, Institutional Performance
IBKR launched regulated crypto trading in 12 weeks, compared to an estimated 12 to 18 months if built internally.
Customer engagement accelerated. Total transactions increased 2,010% year-over-year. Q3 2025 transaction volume reached $216 million, growing 809% year-over-year. The average number of assets traded per customer increased 30% from 2024 to 2025. Time to first trade dropped from 59 days to 15 days year-over-year, indicating improved onboarding efficiency and product engagement.
In March 2026, IBKR worked with zerohash to expand crypto trading in Europe for a potential 450M+ people in the EEA. The inclusion of crypto globally reinforces IBKR’s position as a forward-looking brokerage serving clients across markets and asset classes.
TESTIMONIAL
“The collaboration with zerohash underscores our dedication to providing clients the ability to seamlessly allocate part of their portfolio to cryptocurrency and deliver a crypto trading experience equivalent to traditional equities.”
TESTIMONIAL
“Adding and expanding tokens gives our clients even more flexibility to diversify their portfolios and take advantage of opportunities across digital assets.”
About zerohash
zerohash enables financial platforms to integrate digital assets directly into their core products. Across trading, payments, and tokenization, the company provides regulated infrastructure that supports execution, custody, settlement, and compliance at institutional scale. From consumer fintech apps to global asset managers, zerohash powers embedded crypto experiences across 24/7 markets. Its infrastructure abstracts regulatory and technical complexity, allowing companies to focus on customer experience while operating within a secure, compliant framework.