Over Half a Million People Have Signed Up for Early Access to Robinhood Crypto In Just One Day
Starting in February, users of the stock-trading app Robinhood in five lucky states will be able to buy and sell Bitcoin and Ethereum at no additional fees.
The Palo Alto, California-based startup announced Thursday that the ability to buy and sell the two cryptocurrencies will be rolled out to customers in California, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana, and New Hampshire next month. In the meantime, all users can use Robinhood Crypto to track the prices, news, and create alerts for Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Ripple and 12 other cryptocurrencies.
In December, Robinhood introduced the capability of investing in stock options, also commission-free. This potentially higher risk, yet higher reward trading product was thought to be an attempt to drive more millennial dollars to the app.
But the response to Thursday’s announcement — with over half a million people having already signed up for early access to Robinhood Crypto — it looks like servicing the popular interest in the digital token assets, and at no cost, could be the fastest way to growing the app’s user base.
“We’re planning to operate this business on a break-even basis and we don’t plan to profit from it for the foreseeable future,” Robinhood co-founder Vlad Tenev told Techcrunch. “The value of Robinhood Crypto is in growing our customer base and better serving our existing customers.”
The decision to roll out this product and operate on a break-even basis is interesting, especially following on the heels of news that the popular cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, which charges between 1.5 to 4 percent fees on transactions, is reportedly pulling in something like $2.74 million a day.
Cryptocurrency exchange app Coinbase, which had over 12 million users at last count, has raised a total of $217 million since its founding in 2012. Robinhood, reportedly valued at $1.3 billion, has raised over $170 million since its own founding in 2013 and, as of December, had a user base of 3 million.
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