What are IG's cryptocurrencies spread bet product details?

Cryptocurrency trading is only available to professional traders.
Find out more about our professional account

Download all margin details for cryptocurrency spread betting here:

Cryptocurrency spread bet margin tiers (professional) (37 KB)

Notes to table

1. Markets close at 10pm on Friday night (UK time), then reopen on Saturday at 8am (UK time). Please note that your account can go on margin call during the weekends as the cryptocurrencies market is open.
2. Please note that in times of high volatility, our minimum spreads can increase significantly.
3. For guaranteed stop bets a guaranteed stop premium is charged if your guaranteed stop is triggered. The potential premium is displayed on the deal ticket, and can form part of your margin when you attach the stop. Please note that premiums are subject to change, especially going into weekends and during volatile market conditions.
4. Please note that tiered margins apply; this means that more margin may be required for larger positions. See our margins page for further details. You can find the tiered margins for each market from the Get Info section in our dealing platform.
5. Professional clients are exempt from regulatory limits on leverage in place for retail clients, and are able to trade on lower margins as a result. You can find out more, and check your eligibility, on our professional trading page.
6. Any spread betting position on NEO will not earn the right to any GAS token or equivalent that may have been accumulated during the lifetime of the position.
7. The Crypto 10 Index represents the performance of the largest 10 tokens, selected and weighted by market capitalisation. The index captures close to $202Bn of market cap, representing over 83% of the total market capitalisation of all traded digital assets. The index is calculated and managed by BITA GmbH. For further information click here.

Overnight funding charges

Our daily overnight funding rate is currently 0.0347% (12.5% per Annum) for bitcoin, 0.0417% for the Crypto 10 Index and 0.0556% (20% per Annum) for all other cryptocurrency markets. At present, clients with a long position will pay this overnight funding rate, while clients with a short position will receive on the overnight funding rate. In addition, a 7.5% per-annum IG admin fee will also apply for both long and short positions.

What will this mean for my positions?

• If you are long, you will pay a daily overnight funding charge of 0.0556% (20% per annum) for bitcoin and/or 0.0764% (27.5% per-annum) for other cryptocurrency positions that are open at 10pm (UK time).
• If you are short, you will receive a daily overnight funding charge of 0.0139% (5% per annum) for bitcoin and/or 0.0347% (12.5% per-annum) for other cryptocurrency positions that are open at 10pm (UK time).
• Please note that for any position held through 10pm (London time), we’ll make a daily interest credit or debit adjustment Monday to Sunday. Adjustments to the number of days charged will be made in advance of the Christmas and New Year holidays, to cover settlement of trades over these bank holidays.

We review our overnight funding charges frequently, and keep our website and contract details updated with the latest rates.

See below overnight funding calculations for bitcoin as an example.

Who can trade cryptocurrency?

Under FCA rules, only professional traders can trade cryptocurrency with derivatives like spread bets and CFDs. Learn more about professional trading and check your eligibility on our professional account page.

Why can I sometimes not trade cryptocurrencies?

Given the high demand and price increases, we may restrict any new orders to buy or sell cryptocurrency, both online and over the telephone.

As we hedge client exposure in the underlying market, our interests are aligned with yours. However, due to the various risks and complexity involved in trading underlying cryptocurrencies, there's a limit to the total amount of physical cryptocurrency we can hold as a business. We therefore need to reflect this by limiting the exposure that each client is allowed to maintain through CFDs and spread bets. This limit is currently £250,000 notional (or equivalent) per client across all cryptocurrency holdings. Any client with a notional size above this limit is at risk of having their cryptocurrency positions reduced.

Sometimes our platform won't allow you to open a new long position on cryptocurrencies. This happens when we reach our maximum exposure in the market. You'll be able to open a position when our trading volume changes.

Please note this should not affect your ability to close any existing open positions, provided this does not increase or create net long exposure.

You can check whether or not our cryptocurrencies markets are 'unlongable' in the platform. In IG Trading, click the 'information' icon in the deal ticket, then select 'other'. In the classic platform, click on your market's dropdown and select 'get info'. Please refresh your browser for the latest updates.

IG policy on blockchain forks

We base the price of our cryptocurrency products on the underlying market, made available to us by the exchanges and market-makers with which we trade.

There is currently one accepted decentralised ledger which records all cryptocurrencies transactions – as well as an equivalent for ether – called the blockchain. When the software of different miners becomes misaligned, a split – or 'fork' – in the blockchain may occur. This results in the existence of two different blockchains.

Generally, cryptocurrency users quickly agree which version to continue to use, causing minimal disruption. The old version of the blockchain is then discontinued.

In the event that one version isn't discontinued – known as a hard fork – we will generally follow the blockchain that has the majority consensus of cryptocurrency users, and will therefore use this as the basis for our prices. We reserve the right to determine which blockchain and cryptocurrency unit have the majority consensus behind them.

If the hard fork results in a viable second cryptocurrency, we may create an equivalent position on client accounts to reflect this. However this action is at our absolute discretion, and we will have no obligation to do so. If, and when, the second cryptocurrency is tradeable on a major exchange, we will endeavour to represent that value. We’ll do this either by making the product available to close based on the valuation on that venue, or by booking a cash adjustment on client accounts. If, within a reasonable timeframe, the second currency does not become tradeable on major exchanges or is otherwise deemed not to be viable as a currency (for example, it is not mined), we may delete any positions that had previously been created at no value on client accounts. We will take steps to notify you when we have taken this action.

When a hard fork occurs, there may be substantial price volatility around the event, and we may suspend trading throughout if we do not have reliable prices from the underlying market.

We will endeavour to notify you of potential blockchain forks, however it is your responsibility to make yourself aware of the forks that could occur.