Morning Report: Robinhood, already a unicorn, is bringing fee-free crypto trading to the market today after over a million people signed up for its waitlist. Does it matter?
After a considerable public waiting period, Robinhood started to roll its commission-free crypto trading this morning to select users in five states. The release comes after sustained media interest in the product’s growing waitlist, which eventually topped one million individuals.
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Robinhood, best known for its commission-free stock trading tools, is moving into crypto after the 2017 bitcoin mania has partially subsided. Prices of bitcoin are off around half from their all-time-highs, and other tokens and cryptocurrencies have marked similar declines.
Born in 2013, according to Crunchbase, Robinhood has raised at least $176 million to date, including a $110 million Series C, which gave the company a $1.2 billion pre-money valuation.
Without losing ourselves in the question of whether adding crypto to personal portfolios instead of traditional assets is intelligent—here’s a spoiler—what makes the Robinhood move interesting is its contra-Coinbase potential. Coinbase has emerged as a leading player in the crypto purchase, storage, and trading spaces in the United States. Robinhood wants a piece of that market and at a potential cost-advantage.
Thus whether or not Robinhood’s newly launched product can undercut Coinbase’s stellar, recent growth is the question. It’s unicorn v. unicorn.
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