I am not a big fan of fees. You are not a big fan of fees. It seems that everyone is trying to put their hands in your piggy bank and take a cut of your hard earned crypto. Low cryptocurrency fees are always a hot topic & luckily there is a new hero in town ready to free us from the shackles of trading fees! The infamy of “Robinhood” lives on in the spirit of the Robinhood app & the launch of their new Robinhood Crypto trading platform.
The Lucky ‘Stache Gets The Early Access
When they launched this news a HUGE waiting list piled up (over 1,000,000 users signed up in a few days) to start using Robinhood Crypto. In a recent blog post the company announced they had started rolling Bitcoin & Ethereum buying on the Robinhood app for select customers in California, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana, and New Hampshire. The ‘Stache was one of the lucky few to get early access! Take a look at this sneak peak inside look at the Robinhood Crypto app and how to buy Bitcoin & Ethereum with zero trading fees.
What Is Robinhood Crypto?
Robinhood Crypto is the new cryptocurrency division of the Robinhood investing app. They are all about making stock investing easy & now they are applying that same mission to cryptocurrency. I think they really say it best here;
“…we reached four million users and well over $100 billion in transaction volume on our brokerage platform, leading to over $1 billion in commissions saved in equity trades. With the release of Robinhood Crypto, we’re continuing our mission of making the financial system work for everyone, not just the wealthy.”
Much like the Robinhood of myth the team at Robinhood crypto are out to work for the little guys.
So what's the big deal then?
The real deal here is that there are very few places online where you can purchase cryptocurrency like Bitcoin & Ethereum for fiat currency like USD. Other standards like Coinbase have high trading fees and while competitors like Cashapp have also stepped up, Robinhood does a really great job at filling that “competition gap”. Not only is there a new go-to source for buying cryptocurrency with dollars, but they offer zero trading fees! Yes, that is 0% trading fees for purchasing crypto on their app.
A Look At Buying Crypto With Robinhood
When Robinhood first made their announcement they would be adding buying/selling of crypto to their app I had never heard of it before. No surprise there as I did not trade stocks at the time, but I do now because of Robinhood. Their app makes it stupid simple to buy stocks like Tesla, Apple, & Nvidia and that has not changed with the addition of cryptocurrency.
While you may already have the Robinhood app, the cryptocurrency buy & sell features have only been rolled out to select customers and I happen to be one of the first ones! I got a notification in my app as well as an email telling me “Congrats!”
Right now, you can buy Bitcoin & Ethereum on the app and the interface is pretty easy to use and I love the retro 80's kind of feel to it as well. I decided to test the app out by picking up some Ether while it was bouncing around some dips.
It as super easy to do a limit order when purchasing my Ethereum and as you can see in the screen shot there are 0% commission fees taken. The confetti is a fun touch and sometimes it's little things like this that really help to set a team apart from the rest. Of course there are a few downsides right now. Currently you can't move your coins off the platform, but their FAQ says that feature is coming soon. They also don't seem to be planning letting you transfer crypto INTO the platform, but that could also change in the future. For this basic initial rollout I can understand these limitations and I think with such overwhelming response from interested users they will make major upgrades with growth.
Is Robinhood Crypto The “Coinbase Killer”?
The Robinhood team have a lot going for them and if they can pick up a solid user base of cryptocurrency fans then they may just be able to give places like Coinbase a run for their money. The integration of stocks & crypto in one platform that is mobile first and aimed at a younger demographic packs a lot of punch and I think Robinhood Crypto is going to be the next best place to build that crypto ‘stache!
May The ‘Stache Shall Rain Profit On Thee Who Be Financially Oppressed!
I’ve not got around to trying them out yet. If you can’t move the coins from the app then I’ll probably leave them alone. I prefer holding my crypto on the Trezor.
Yeah that is a bit of a downside, but this is just their initial roll out of this feature to test and it. They will for sure allow moving your coins in the very near future when they actually open it up to all customers and not just the select few they are using for testing.