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Over 1 Million People Queue Up for Early Access to Robinhood’s Crypto Trading App

Martin Young | Jan 30, 2018 | 00:30

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Millennials can’t get enough of crypto it appears. When US trading brokerage Robinhood announced that it was venturing into the crypto space social media erupted with enthusiasm. Those eager to embark on a journey into crypto land will have to get in line, over a million users have already signed up for early access to the new crypto app.

According to reports Robinhood has been inundated with interest in its latest offering. It has only been four days since the company announced that it was going to offer commission-free crypto trading. Yet the queue is growing longer by the minute.  If all those new sign-ups become Robinhood cryptocurrency customers, it will mark an increase of over 30% percent to the company’s overall user base of more than 3 million.

More than 1 million people sign up for early access to Robinhood's new crypto trading service https://t.co/vIvqxuxg85

— Bart Stephens (@pbartstephens) January 30, 2018

A Long Wait

The firm said that it would allow zero fee crypto trading in February but would be rolling the service out gradually. Initially, it will only be available in five states but that has not stopped the digital gold rush. The intention to have all customers on board by mid-2018 was the plan, however, the demand has been unprecedented and it could be a long wait for many before they can actually trade.

One of the major complaints crypto traders have is exchanges, and bottlenecks during periods of high volume and demand. Some such as Coinbase simply close their doors to customers when their servers are overwhelmed. Hardly a professional approach from a firm that made over a billion dollars in revenue from those customers last year.

Exchange Pains

Robinhood could fall into the same trap if it enables trading to all of those that have applied for the app. Blockchain Capital co-founder Bart Stephens commented:

To me, this speaks to a generational interest in crypto, what Robinhood’s going to find quickly is they’re going to jump right into the same growing pains that Coinbase has.

However, Robinhood co-founder Baiju Bhatt remained confident;

Crypto is going to change the world and we want to help drive that.  Today our business transacts 10,000 different symbols in equities and ETFs. We see millions of trades a day. In our brokerage industry there is no excuse for down time. We plan on bringing that mind-set to the crypto space. We don’t view any of that stuff as acceptable.

There is no ignoring the growing interest in cryptocurrencies from a generation that is already wary about institutional banks and traditional investment options, having seen the mess they can make of an economy when things go wrong.

Will Robinhood go the same way as Coinbase and collapse under pressure? Add your thoughts below.

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