Introducing broker (IB)

The term comes from traditional finance, where an IB introduces clients to a clearing broker and earns from their activity without handling custody or execution itself. Crypto exchanges adopted the model: IB-level partners typically operate under negotiated agreements with deeper commission structures than standard affiliate sign-ups, sometimes with sub-partner trees beneath them.

The defining boundary is that an IB introduces and earns — it never holds client funds, never executes orders, and has no access to client accounts beyond attribution records. Your trading relationship, balances, and keys remain entirely with the exchange.

Rebate platforms are, structurally, IBs that share their commission with the introduced traders. loweef operates on exactly this model: exchange-side partnership for attribution and commission, non-custodial by construction, with the trader's share published as the total rate per partner. The internal split between platform and exchange is governed by the partnership agreements and is not part of the public rate — what is public is the share you receive.