• Thomas Peterffy owns a certain amount of bitcoin for an odd reason.
• He states that crypto activity at IBKR has been quite slow.
• BTC is trading far below the $30,000 level today.

Interactive Brokers – a financial services provider that allows 24/7 trading of bitcoin reported weaker-than-expected earnings for its primary financial quarter this week.

Chairman Peterffy’s Thoughts on BTC

On Wednesday, discussing the earnings report with CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin, the firm’s chairman revealed he owned some bitcoin although for an unusual purpose.

As far as I’m concerned, it’s worthless. But I have some even though I think it’s worthless because other people believe that it’s worth something.

Thomas Peterffy also stated that he had no opinion on where the bitcoin price may be headed from here.

The largest cryptocurrency is trading below the $30,000 level today as investors sought to capitalise on its massive rally in recent months.

Crypto Trading Has Been Slow at IBKR

Interactive Brokers noted a 21% annualised increase in client accounts in its recently finished quarter to 2.20 million.

Discussing how crypto contributed to the platform’s financial performance in Q1, Chairman Thomas Peterffy said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box”:

Crypto activity on our platform is very sluggish. We don’t custody crypto – that may be a reason. But generally, crypto trading has decreased significantly from where it was a year or two ago.

He also doesn’t have an optimistic outlook on the equities market and said the S&P 500 should be trading about 20% lower than where it is now.