Starting Feb 2018 you can buy and trade Bitcoin and Ethereum with zero fees with Robinhood - a no fee stock trading platform. For those who are not familiar with this billion dollar startup, Robinhood is a stock trading platform that offers zero fees for trading transactions, in contrast to traditional brokers (such as E-Trade, Scottrade etc.) that charge fees for trading.

By offering zero fees, Robinhood hopes it will attract many cryptocurrency traders in a short time. This market penetration strategy has worked well for this startup, as it has proven successful for its stock trading division.

Although zero fees sounds attractive, there is a "flip side to the coin" - some traders that have big gains may be more interested in paying the nominal 1-4% fees in exchange for keeping their identities private.

Overall, this is good news for cryptocommunity, that a mainstream stock brokerage is adding cryptocurrency trading to their platform. Here are a few reasons why: First it creates competition for current exchanges such as Coinbase.com, which may lead to lowering transaction fees they charge. Second, the fact that cryptocurrency is being adopted by mainstream exchanges is a sign that cryptocurrency trading is becoming more popular with the mainstream population.