I have no shame in saying that I am a huge fan of Robinhood. Have they had some bumps along the way? Yes of course. More importantly, they single handily revolutionized investing for the common person. Before Robinhood, you had to pay fees on almost each and every trade and these added expensive were not cheap it could be $5-$7 a trade! Robinhood drove everyone to zero or almost zero trading fees which for a fintech company is the goal!
Robinhood was also one of the first brokerage firms to offer investors the ability to buy a few particular cryptocurrencies. Since they released the ability to buy and sell these 7 cryptos (Bitcoin, Bitcoin SV, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Ethereum, Etherium Classic, and Dogecoin) many crypto enthusiasts have been really upset that they have not expanded their offerings. It also rapidly became a bone of contention that you could not move the cryptos off-platform leading to people to say "not your keys not your crypto". Typically I would agree as really any other platform that offered this I would expect them to allow for wallet transitions. Robinhood though was one of the firsts and was trying to build upon a business that at its core was a stock market-centered platform.
The Robinhood Team has also been really good at updating people about what was going on and going on interviews to keep investors informed. The reason that they did not offer crypto wallets boiled down to one thing. Security. While an exchange like Coinbase is meant to buy and sell or exchange coins Robinhood was built for investors in the stock market who liked the idea to become long-term HODLers. More importantly, Robinhood needed to make sure 110% that there was no way that people's stocks were ever going to be endangered by the wallet transfers. Now that the Alpha window has closed the team this month is going to being to rollout wallet addresses.
This led to another issue Robinhood reported Alpha users having and that was that a sizeable chunk of Alpha users thought that they would only get 1 wallet address and not 7 like they are. Robinhood has had to come up with different checks and ways to educate people to make sure they send their crypto to the right place and do not lose it! In their most recent blog post covering this, the team believes they have the fixes and warnings in place to protect the users!
Taking all of this into consideration is it now time to cut Robinhood a break about how they have run their crypto market? Personally, I think it is. Until they prove me otherwise I treat their crypto offers as a newbies beginner guide or an introduction. Crypto, while it might have been a huge moneymaker for them, is still not the core base of Robinhood. As soon as they start adding more cryptos I will start to believe that they are trying to capture some of that market share as well but for now with what they offer and the reason why it has been rolled out as it has I think it is time to get behind them and the level of security they wish to provide. This isn't a product that is being rushed out like they could have chosen thus giving me more faith in their end product.
Please know I am not a financial advisor I am just someone who picked up on a trend and wanted to express it! Makes sure you always do your own research and never invest money you cannot afford to lose! If you enjoyed this article and would like to further support me below are a couple of referral links that if you used when signing up I would appreciate it! Also, follow me on Twitter @Cje95_
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