HTX Turns Negative Fees on TradFi Assets Into a Competitive Weapon

Negative trading fees are rare in crypto. They are practically unheard of outside futures markets, where makers get tiny rebates for providing order-book depth. Offering users cash back on spot trades of traditional finance assets is a different play entirely.

That is exactly what HTX runs now. On August 5, the exchange launched the second phase of its TradFi Trade to Earn campaign, the original announcement confirms, bringing negative fee rates to 28 handpicked TradFi assets and dangling an $80,000 prize pool for participants.

The structure is built to pull traders who normally sit on broker platforms.

By letting them trade tokenized stocks, ETFs, and similar instruments with negative fees, HTX is essentially paying customers to provide liquidity on pairs that historically struggle for volume on crypto-native venues.