Robinhood, will allow you to trade in Bitcoin and Ethereum without any transaction fees beginning February 2018. Robinhood is a commission-free stock trading financial tech (fintech) start up founded by Vlad Tenev and Baiju Bhatt. This is seen by many as an attempt to compete strongly with Coinbase who presently charge between 1.5 and 4 percent in the United States. Prior to this launch in February, Robinhood is allowing all of its users to start tracking the prices and other news about the afore mentioned cryptocurrencies and 14 other ones which include Ripple’s XRP and Litecoin LTC. Co founder of Robinhood, Vlad Tenev, stated as part of an announcement made to the that

“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” says Robinhood co-founder Vlad Tenev. “The value of Robinhood Crypto is in growing our customer base and better serving our existing customers.”

Robinhood has 3 million users and this could be a way to increase their numbers. Unlike Coinbase that trades in cryptocurrencies as its primary business, Robinhood is seeking to make its trade in cryptocurrencies a loss leader. This attempt to both simplify and track cryptocurrencies when combined with its already existing traditional stocks, option trading and ETF all in one app is just too good an offer to resist. Already, people are craving for cryptocurrencies to be legitimized as stocks for trading, merging these two in one app could be a start to something even bigger that Robinhood founders may not even have realised and will surely draw more people into the crypto circle.

How Safe Is Robinhood?

With the cryptocurrency craze has also come the need for more exchange services to facilitate these transactions. Most of these start ups have quite questionable backgrounds but you can be assured of safety with Robinhood. Robinhood has been in the system for five years now and has managed to raise up t $176 million from prominent investors like Index, NEA and Andreessen Horowitz. The company is presently valued at $1.3 billion. Robinhood would be most suited for cryptocurrency traders who invest in it for long term as they can earn interests there.

Robinhood works pretty simple and easily, you can transfer up to as much as a $1000 from your connected bank account provided you are a Gold member. Additional funds of yours can also come in at a slower ACH transfer. This does away with lags that are faced on most trading platforms when you want to buy at lower prices especially. The cryptocurrency section also works 24 hours a day with a futuristic design.

Per one close confidential source to Robinhood’s creators, when a buy or sell order is placed “Robinhood gives you an estimated price, connects to a slew of trading venues, exchanges, and market centres to find the lowest price, and uses its economies of scale to improve to score better prices over time. To counter market volatility, Robinhood puts a “collar” around your trade so if it can’t execute it at close to the estimated price, it waits for the price to return or lets you know. And in case the price of a coin skyrockets or plummets, you can place limit orders to set a price where you automatically buy or sell.”

Which Coins Are Available For Trading?

The seventeen cryptocurrencies you can track on Robinhood starting from today are Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Monero, Litecoin, Ethereum Classic, OmiseGo, NEO, Zcash, Lisk , Dash, Stellar, Qtum, Bitcoin Gold, Ripple, and Dogecoin. However, the zero-fee transactions will only be available to users in Missouri, New Hampshire, California, Massachusetts, and Montana when it rolls up in February, or starters though. In the course of time more states and coins will be added to avoid a system jam by many people rushing for the service. Co founder Tenev, also added that the cryptocurrencies they were deciding to trade in were ones they were very selective about. This he claims is because they have proven to be stronger than people thought and have come back from very low levels to become competitive coins over time.

Security of Robinhood

Robinhood is also introducing a new two factor verification system to back up its cryptocurrency trading, judging by how cryptocurrency hacking has become very rampant in recent times. It would also allow integration into authenticating apps to prevent loss of wallets. Robinhood knows that its reputation stands on the cliff’s edge should it be hacked and that is why it has hired “several senior world-class personnel to build its system” according to Vlad.

Cryptocurrency As An Asset, No More Just A Payment Option

Vlad Tenev stated that people were no longer seeing cryptocurrencies as an alternative for money payment but an asset to invest in after a survey conducted amongst it’s users showed about 95,000 of them showing interest in investing in them should they be introduced unto the platform. But as to the what the founders of Robinhood thought about cryptocurrencies, this was what Vlad Tenev stated in an interview he granted to TechCrunch

“ it puts power that’s historically been held by financial institutions in the hands of the people. I think that lines up directly with Robinhood’s mission to democratize the financial system. We’re an established company and we can handle it”

We at Coinstaker appreciate your views and opinions very much concerning what you read and would like to know more of what you think. Join our conversation on Telegram.