Interactive Brokers Adds USDC Deposits Amid Stablecoin Adoption
Interactive Brokers is expanding its crypto offering by enabling 24/7 account funding with stablecoins, reflecting the accelerating institutional adoption of blockchain-based payments.
Electronic brokerage giant Interactive Brokers has taken another step toward integrating crypto-native infrastructure into traditional finance, announcing that clients can now fund their brokerage accounts using stablecoins that are automatically converted into U.S. dollars. The move aims to streamline global access to capital markets while reducing costs and settlement delays tied to legacy banking rails.
The new feature underscores how stablecoins are increasingly moving beyond crypto trading venues into mainstream financial services, particularly as regulatory clarity and transaction volumes continue to grow worldwide.
Stablecoin Funding Goes Live Across Multiple Blockchains
On January 15, Interactive Brokers revealed it has partnered with crypto infrastructure provider zerohash to support USDC-based account funding across three major blockchains: Ethereum, Solana, and Base. The integration allows clients to deposit funds at any time, without relying on traditional wire transfers or banking business hours.
According to the firm, stablecoin deposits are converted into U.S. dollars immediately upon receipt and credited directly to the client’s brokerage account. This ensures that users gain exposure to crypto rails for funding, while their actual trading balances remain denominated in fiat.
Interactive Brokers also confirmed that support for Ripple USD (RLUSD) and PayPal USD (PYUSD) is expected to launch in the coming weeks, further broadening the range of regulated stablecoins available for account funding.
The rollout builds on an earlier step taken in December, when the company first allowed retail investors to fund individual brokerage accounts using USDC. Previous reports also indicated that Interactive Brokers had explored the possibility of launching its own proprietary stablecoin, though no such plans have been formally announced.
Addressing Cross-Border Friction in Global Markets
Interactive Brokers framed the move as a direct response to long-standing inefficiencies in cross-border capital flows. Traditional international funding via fiat wire transfers can involve high fees, multi-day settlement times, and limited availability outside banking hours, particularly for investors operating across jurisdictions.
By contrast, the firm emphasized that stablecoins offer:
- Near-instant settlement
- Lower transaction costs
- 24/7 availability without banking cutoffs
In a statement accompanying the announcement, Interactive Brokers CEO Milan Galik highlighted the practical benefits for international clients:
“Stablecoin funding provides international investors with the speed and flexibility required in today’s markets. Clients can transfer funds and begin trading within minutes, while also reducing transaction costs.”
The comments reflect a broader trend among financial institutions that are increasingly viewing stablecoins as a payments and settlement layer, rather than purely speculative crypto assets.
A Gradual Expansion of Crypto Services
Interactive Brokers is not new to digital assets. The brokerage first introduced crypto trading services in 2021, initially supporting Bitcoin and Ethereum on its platform. Over time, its crypto offering expanded, with additional assets — including Solana and XRP — added in 2025.
The introduction of stablecoin-based funding represents a logical extension of that strategy, shifting crypto from the trading interface to the plumbing of account infrastructure itself. By abstracting away blockchain complexity through automatic fiat conversion, the firm is positioning stablecoins as a backend efficiency tool rather than a speculative product.
This approach mirrors how other institutions are experimenting with tokenized deposits and onchain settlement while maintaining familiar user experiences.
Stablecoins Surpass $300 Billion Market Cap
Interactive Brokers’ move comes amid a period of rapid expansion for the stablecoin sector. Throughout 2025, stablecoins saw accelerating adoption as governments, financial institutions, and payment providers explored their use for settlement and cross-border transfers.
In October, the total stablecoin market capitalization surpassed $300 billion for the first time, marking a 46.8% year-to-date increase at that point. Growth was largely driven by Tether (USDT), USDC, and Ethena Labs’ yield-bearing stablecoin USDe.
As of the latest data, the entire stablecoin market cap exceeds $310 billion, according to figures from DeFi data aggregator DefiLlama. The continued expansion highlights rising confidence in fiat-backed digital assets as infrastructure components of the global financial system.
$33 Trillion in Stablecoin Transactions in 2025
Beyond market capitalization, transaction activity has also surged. According to Bloomberg data compiled by Artemis Analytics, global stablecoin transaction value reached $33 trillion in 2025, representing a 72% increase year over year.
Usage patterns reveal a notable shift:
- USDC led by transaction volume, processing $18.3 trillion
- USDT followed with $13.3 trillion in transactions
- USDT still maintains the largest market capitalization at $187 billion
The figures suggest that while USDT remains dominant in terms of supply, USDC has become the preferred stablecoin for transactional use, particularly among institutions and regulated platforms.
Regulatory Clarity Fuels Institutional Adoption
Industry participants largely attribute the surge in stablecoin activity to improving regulatory certainty, particularly in the United States. In July 2025, lawmakers passed the GENIUS Act, the first comprehensive U.S. regulatory framework specifically targeting payment stablecoins.
The legislation provided clearer guidelines around issuance, reserves, and compliance — a development many observers say reduced legal ambiguity and encouraged broader institutional participation.
This shift has had ripple effects globally, with stablecoins increasingly viewed as compliant tools for settlement, treasury management, and onchain payments rather than regulatory gray-zone assets.
Stablecoins as a Core Onchain Primitive
The growing role of stablecoins is also reflected in forward-looking research from the crypto industry. In a recent report cited by CryptoPulse, venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) identified stablecoins, tokenization, and privacy infrastructure as the most influential forces shaping the next phase of onchain adoption in 2026.
Against that backdrop, Interactive Brokers’ decision to integrate stablecoin funding appears less like an experiment and more like an acknowledgment of where financial infrastructure is heading. As stablecoins continue to mature under clearer regulatory regimes and deeper liquidity, their role in bridging traditional finance and blockchain-native systems is becoming increasingly difficult for large institutions to ignore.
By embedding stablecoins directly into account funding workflows, Interactive Brokers is signaling that the future of global market access may depend as much on blockchain rails as on the assets being traded atop them.
