As Bitcoin Price Hovers Below $3,500, Interest in Crypto Climbs, Says $1.2 Trillion Brokerage Giant

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Bitcoin is currently trading at $3,426, according to data compiled by CoinGecko, down 1% within the past 24 hours and more than 7% since the start of the new year.

Contrary to crypto doom-and-gloom speculations made by Warren Buffett, Jamie Dimon, Peter Schiff and other financial analysts, economists and insiders who claim that Bitcoin is going to zero, interest in crypto from retail and institutional investors is heating up, according to $1.2 trillion brokerage giant TD Ameritrade.

In a newly published video on Nasdaq TradeTalks, TD Ameritrade’s Shawn Cruz says their clientele has shown increased activity in their Bitcoin futures trading service ever since Bitcoin fell below $4,000.

“At TD Ameritrade, we offer Bitcoin futures trading for our clients. We saw them get very interested when volume spiked when it was around $10,000. On this pullback lower, there really wasn’t much activity from our client base. But now that we’re getting down to this 3 or $4,000 price level on Bitcoin, we’re starting to see our clients become more interested in trading Bitcoin again.”

The S&P 500’s most recent pullback in December saw a sharp increase in Bitcoin trading volume which continued a pattern of Bitcoin doing the inverse of most stock indices. Such patterns suggest that when traditional markets decline, investors see Bitcoin as a feasible asset to park their funds. But Bitcoin trading volume isn’t the only indicator of investor interest in the cryptocurrency space.

Large investment companies are also funding cryptocurrency platforms and exchanges in order to satisfy customer demand for more entry points into the cryptocurrency space.

TD Ameritrade recently backed ErisX, an upcoming cryptocurrency trading platform. The announcement marks another major traditional investment firm to throw its weight behind ErisX, following Fidelity and Nasdaq.

Says Cruz,

“We’ve actually made an investment in ErisX exchange, and for us that’s another way for us to get our clients access to this asset class on a regulated exchange, and it’s also going to bring them more products that are going to be both cash and future related products. So it’s something we’re excited to offer and our clients can look forward to hearing more on that front in the first half of 2019.”

Fidelity also plans to launch its own cryptocurrency custody solution in March, and Nasdaq is powering a growing number of crypto exchanges with surveillance technology.