Marex Prepares to Accept BTC, ETH as Initial Margin Collateral

Marex Group plans to accept Bitcoin and Ethereum as initial margin collateral for derivatives later this year, expanding on its stablecoin program announced last month.

The firm's move comes after a no-action letter issued by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in December 2025, which permits futures commission merchants to accept non-securities digital assets, including USDC, Bitcoin and Ethereum, as customer margin collateral for CFTC-regulated derivatives under certain conditions.

According to Stephen Hood, head of clearing, Americas at Marex, demand for the capability has come from across the client base, originating with hedge funds, market makers, U.S. Treasury cash investors, and decentralized finance (DeFi) entities.

Marex has built a framework combining risk governance, institutional custody, and operating procedures covering eligibility criteria, wallet governance, transaction approvals, and cybersecurity, with USDC collateral managed under the same enterprise risk standards applied across the firm's traditional markets business.