The line between banking hours and market hours is starting to disappear. In a move that quietly reshapes how traders access capital, Interactive Brokers is opening the door to stablecoin-based account funding, allowing clients to move money and trade at any time of day, regardless of where they are in the world.
Rather than framing the change as a crypto expansion, the brokerage is positioning stablecoins as a utility layer – a faster settlement rail designed to solve long-standing inefficiencies in global trading. For active investors, the most immediate impact is simple: money no longer needs to wait for banks.
Key Takeaways
Interactive Brokers now enables 24/7 account funding using USDC stablecoins
Stablecoin rails remove reliance on bank hours and slow wire transfers
Funds are converted automatically to dollars and credited within minutes
The system is powered by Zerohash across multiple blockchains
More stablecoins are expected to be added as tokenized cash adoption grows
From Banking Hours to Market Hours
Traditional brokerage funding has always been constrained by legacy systems. Wire transfers are slow, expensive, and tied to local business hours. Stablecoins flip that model entirely. By accepting USDC deposits around the clock, Interactive Brokers enables traders to react instantly to global events, earnings surprises, or overnight market moves.
For international clients in particular, this removes a major friction point. Capital can be transferred, converted, and deployed in minutes rather than days, without relying on correspondent banks or time-zone alignment.
Behind the Scenes: Blockchain as Infrastructure
The technical backbone of the system is provided by Zerohash, which handles wallet generation, settlement, and conversion. Clients send USDC from their own crypto wallets to a dedicated wallet address across supported blockchains, including Ethereum, Solana, and Base.
Once received, the stablecoins are automatically converted into U.S. dollars and credited to the brokerage account. From the user’s perspective, the process feels similar to a standard deposit – just dramatically faster. Fees remain relatively low, consisting of a small conversion charge plus standard blockchain network costs.
This setup allows Interactive Brokers to use blockchain rails without exposing clients to custody complexity or on-chain risk management.
Stablecoins Move Into the Core of Trading
USDC is only the starting point. Interactive Brokers plans to broaden its stablecoin support, with Ripple’s RLUSD and PayPal’s PYUSD expected to follow. The firm has previously explored issuing a proprietary stablecoin, signaling that tokenized cash is increasingly seen as core infrastructure rather than an experimental add-on.
At the same time, Zerohash has attracted attention well beyond crypto circles, with reports of acquisition talks involving Mastercard underscoring how traditional payments giants are eyeing blockchain-native settlement providers.
Why This Matters Beyond Crypto
This development is less about digital assets and more about the future of financial plumbing. By decoupling trading from banking hours, Interactive Brokers is signaling what modern markets may soon expect by default: instant funding, continuous access, and globally interoperable money.
As stablecoins continue to gain regulatory clarity and institutional acceptance, features like 24/7 account funding are likely to spread across the brokerage industry. What now looks like a competitive advantage may soon become a baseline requirement for firms serving global, always-on markets.
In that sense, Interactive Brokers is not just adding a new funding option – it is quietly rewriting the rules of when trading can actually begin.
