HTX Unleashes Negative Fees on TradFi Assets to Lock in Market Share

HTX has launched the second phase of its TradFi Trade to Earn campaign, offering negative fees on 28 handpicked traditional finance assets. This is a significant move in the crypto market, as negative trading fees are rare and usually only found in futures markets.

The campaign aims to attract traders who normally sit on broker platforms by letting them trade tokenized stocks, ETFs, and similar instruments with negative fees. By paying customers to provide liquidity on pairs that historically struggle for volume, HTX is essentially absorbing the cost to seed activity while hoping to lock in market share.

The move suggests that the cost of acquiring a trader now outweighs the near-term revenue from their transactions. The $80,000 prize pool is manageable marketing spend, but sustained negative fees across 28 pairs imply a real cost base against thin revenue elsewhere.