TD Ameritrade Holding Corporation, an Omaha-based brokerage firm, announced on Tuesday that it has made a strategic investment into ErisX, a regulated derivatives exchange. As part of the investment, ErisX will add digital asset futures and spot contracts onto a single Trading Platform .
Last year, TD Ameritrade was part of the first wave of financial institutions to add bitcoin futures contracts to their platforms. The collaboration with ErisX seems to be a natural progression, with cryptocurrency demand from the broker’s retail clients growing.
TD Ameritrade and ErisX Partnership Is the Result of Retail Crypto Demand
Commenting on the investment, Steve Quirk, executive vice president of Trading & Education at TD Ameritrade said: “Our retail clients are seeking to access and trade digital currency products in the same way they do with traditional capital markets – through a legitimate, regulated and transparent exchange. That’s precisely why we chose to invest in ErisX – to make digital currency products more accessible to retail clients.”
TD Ameritrade is a leader in retail trading in the United States. It currently has more than 11 million client accounts, making up more than $1.2 trillion in assets. The value of TD Ameritrade’s investment was not disclosed in the statement released by the broker.
JB Mackenzie, managing director Futures & Forex at TD Ameritrade added: “As a strategic investor in the initiative, we look forward to working with the team at ErisX as they develop and launch digital currency products designed to fulfill the needs of retail investors. ErisX’s plan is to offer traders access to cryptocurrency spot contracts as well as futures contracts on a single exchange.”
The CEO of ErisX, Thomas Chippas, also commented: "TD Ameritrade is an innovative, forward-thinking firm and we are thrilled to join with them to deliver their clients access to the secure and transparent ErisX digital asset market."