Blockfolio Adds Zero-Fee Crypto Trading
- The new trading functionality comes only six months after FTX acquired Blockfolio in a $150 million deal.
- Users of the app will also have the option of trading tokenized stocks listed on derivatives exchange FTX.
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Crypto portfolio tracking app Blockfolio is entering the crypto trading market with a new zero-fee crypto trading functionality, the company said in a blog post on 29 January.
According to the announcement, Blockfolio’s new trading functionality will be powered by derivatives exchange FTX, which acquired the portfolio tracking app in a $150 million deal six months ago. Even though Blockfolio teased that the first big collaboration with FTX would be a new trading experience, we now know the app will be among the few platforms to offer zero-fee crypto trading.
Blockfolio further said it will be listing all tokenized stocks featured on FTX to its “non-European international users”. The firm revealed that while it was not planning to add this feature to its trading experience “just yet”, this offering was included due to the ongoing situation with Robinhood, which recently restricted some crypto and stock offerings. Blockfolio said in its blog post:
“While we have done numerous prep work for the future possibility of integrating stocks into Blockfolio, we weren’t planning on doing that just yet. We’ve now seen restrictions, halts, disabled functionality, and a general decrease in access to once widely available financial instruments. Instruments we believe are there for the people.”
The situation around Robinhood has not only affected Blockfolio — which expedited its plans to launch tokenized stock trading — but other apps as well. On 29 January, crypto trading app Voyager Digital revealed it had to temporarily put its app in maintenance mode due to an unexpected growth in account creation. For a period of time the app saw approximately 100 new accounts being created each minute, which forced it to “quickly expand its infrastructure capacity overnight”. Voyager Digital commented:
“Voyager believes the surge in accounts is due to competitive products temporarily restricting users from certain stocks and crypto currencies that have surged in recent days as widely reported in the media.”
- Documents have shown that around 94% of the $84 million FTX paid to acquire a 52% stake in Blockfolio in 2020 was in its own FTT token.
- The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission labeled the token a security in its complaint against former Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison.
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- The goal is to create a new standard for quality in retail experiences, while releasing innovative new products and features.
- FTX’s CEO has declared the company’s intentions to further expand Blockfolio and scale up its value.