Cryptocurrency

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Quintacorn Robinhood’s free crypto trading rolls out in Cali, 3 more states

Robinhood is rolling out its Coinbase-killer that’s already helped the fintech startup’s valuation grow 4X in a year. Zero-fee trading of Bitcoin and Ethereum is now available to all investors in California, Massachusetts, Missouri, and Montana. Everyone else is still on the waitlist. Robinhood users everywhere can already track 16 crypto coins including BTC, ETH, Litecoin, and Ripple, as well as trade traditional stocks with no transaction commission.

Announced in January, Robinhood Crypto vastly undercuts Coinbase’s U.S. fees that range from 1.5 to 4 percent. One million users waitlisted for Robinhood Crypto in the first 5 days after it was announced, and the app now has four million total registered users. Its lack of fees is proving to be a way to lure both veteran and rookie crypto investors to Robinhood, though it lacks support for trading as wide of a range of coins as Coinbase. Rather than charging per trade, Robinhood earns money from interest on money in users’ accounts and its Robinhood Gold subscription service. For for $6 to $200 a month in subscription fees, users can borrow between $1,000 and $50,000 to trade with.

Robinhood Gold’s success, adding options and web trading, and the new Robinhood Crypto helped the startup attract a $350 million Series D round led by Russian fund DST Global, which a source confirms will value it at $5.6 billion and bring it to $526 million in total funding. That’s up from the $110 million Series C at a $1.3 billion valuation it raised last year.

That massive valuation will put a ton of pressure on Robinhood’s co-CEOs Vlad Tenev and Baiju Bhatt to keep it growing, build out its subscription and interest revenue, and invade the space of competitors. [Disclosure: I know the founders from college] Those include traditional brokers like Scottrade and E*Trade that can charge $7 or more per trade, crypto-specific exchanges like Coinbase, and news sources like CoinDesk.

Robinhood risks a down round if the heightened societal and regulatory skepticism about cryptocurrencies curtail investments from the public. Robinhood’s historical focus on younger, less wealthy investors who aren’t “accredited” could make it especially vulnerable to crypto backlash if users see the space as too volatile or scammy for amateur investors to join. There are also heightened cybersecurity concerns, as users might bail on the app if they fear their cryptocurrency could be stolen.

Robinhood might do well to get more serious about how it offers crypto education. It’s promised to provide a feed of crypto news to keep people informed about why markets are moving, though it’s still in testing with a small number of users right now. The problem is that the crypto journalism space is rife with integrity violations and reporters with questionable expertise. If Robinhood bought or built a truly neutral crypto news source, it could use that to attract investors to its crypto trading platform.

[Disclosre: The author of this article owns small positions in Bitcoin and Ethereum but does not day trade. Detailed disclosures can be found here.]

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Stock trade app Robinhood raising at $5B+, up 4X in a year

By adding a cryptocurrency exchange, a web version and stock option trading, Robinhood has managed to quadruple its valuation in a year, according to a source familiar with a new round the startup is raising. Robinhood is closing in on around $350 million in Series D funding led by Russian firm DST Global, the source says. That’s just 11 months after Robinhood confirmed TechCrunch’s scoop that the zero-fee stock trading app had raised a $110 million Series C at a $1.3 billion valuation. The new raise would bring Robinhood to $526 million in funding.

Details of the Series D were first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

The astronomical value growth shows that investors see Robinhood as a core part of the mobile finance tools upon which the next generation will rely. The startup also just proved its ability to nimbly adapt to trends by building its cryptocurrency trading feature in less than two months to make sure it wouldn’t miss the next big economic shift. One million users waitlisted for access in just the five days after Robinhood Crypto was announced.

The launch completed a trio of product debuts. The mobile app finally launched a website version for tracking and trading stocks without a commission in November. In December it opened options trading, making it a more robust alternative to brokers like E*Trade and Scottrade. They often charge $7 or more per stock trade compared to zero with Robinhood, but also give away features that are reserved for Robinhood’s premium Gold subscription tier.

Robinhood won’t say how many people have signed up for its $6 to $200 per month Gold service that lets people trade on margin, with higher prices netting them more borrowing power. That and earning interest on money stored in Robinhood accounts are the startup’s primary revenue sources.

Rapid product iteration and skyrocketing value surely helped recruit Josh Elman, who Robinhood announced yesterday has joined as VP of product as he transitions to a part-time roll at Greylock Partners. He could help the company build a platform business as a backbone for other fintech apps, they way he helped Facebook build its identity platform.

In effect, Robinhood has figured out how to make stock trading freemium. Rather than charge per trade with bonus features included, Robinhood gives away the bare-bones trades and charges for everything else. That could give it a steady, scalable business model akin to Dropbox, which grew by offering small amounts of free storage and then charging for extras and enterprise accounts. From a start with free trades, Robinhood could blossom into a hub for your mobile finance life.

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Winklevoss-led Gemini announces a self-regulatory group for crypto

 Gemini, run by the Winklevoss twins, is one of the most Wall Street-oriented exchanges on the crypto markets. Originally envisioned as “bitcoin in a suit,” it is now leading the way in self- regulation with a new Virtual Commodity Association, a self-regulating group that aims to take the guesswork out of crypto in the future. “We believe a thoughtful SRO framework that… Read More

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Qarnot unveils a cryptocurrency heater for your home

 French startup Qarnot unveiled a new computing heater specifically made for cryptocurrency mining. You’ve read that right, the QC1 is a heater for your home that features a passive computer inside. And this computer is optimized for mining. While most people use laptops, back in the golden days of computer towers, you could heat a room with a couple of desktop computers. And heat is… Read More

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Rakuten will roll its $9B loyalty program into a new blockchain-based cryptocurrency, Rakuten Coin

 Back in 2016, Amazon’s Japanese rival Rakuten acquired Bitnet, a bitcoin wallet startup that it had previously invested in, to help it work on blockchain technology and applications. Today, one of the first fruits of that deal has come to light. The company is planning a new cryptocurrency called Rakuten Coin — built on blockchain technology and the company’s existing… Read More

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Circle acquires cryptocurrency exchange Poloniex

 Circle just announced that it is acquiring U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange Poloniex. According to Fortune, Circle is paying $400 million for the acquisition. Poloniex has been around for years and used to be one of the biggest exchanges out there — there are now many exchanges competing with Poloniex.
Circle is an interesting startup because it’s hard to keep track of what it does. Read More

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Robinhood rolls out zero-fee crypto trading as it hits 4M users

 Coinbase has some serious competition. Today, Robinhood starts rolling out its no-commission cryptocurrency trading feature in California, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana and New Hampshire. Users there can buy and sell Bitcoin and Ethereum with no extra fees, and everyone can track those and 14 other coins in its sleek app. Read More

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Join me for an evening of crypto with writers Paul Vigna and Michael Casey

 I’m pleased to announce that I’m going to have Paul Vigna and Michael Casey, authors of The Truth Machine, onstage with me next week at Knotel, a co-working and event space in Manhattan. I’d love for you to come. You can RSVP here. It’s happening on February 28 at 7pm and will feature a 35-minute talk with two of the top writers in crypto. These guys literally wrote… Read More

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Human sequencing pioneer George Church wants to give you the power to sell your DNA on the blockchain

 The blockchain is the buzziest thing on the internet these days and now MIT professor and godfather of the Human Genome Project George Church wants to put your genes on it. His new startup Nebula Genomics plans to sequence your genome for less than $1,000 and then add your data to the blockchain through the purchase of a “Nebula Token.” Read More

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