The popular trading app Robinhood is adding Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin to its platform.
Robinhood added crypto to its mobile stock investing app in February, and offers Bitcoin and Ethereum trading in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin.
The addition of Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin in the limited list of states is part of Robinhood’s increasing interest in cryptocurrency markets. It will also extend its no-fee trading offer, a strategy that has made the app popular among Millennials.
Since the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) determined that Bitcoin and Ethereum are not securities, it defined the limited regulatory risk for an exchange that adds coins with similar characteristics – particularly those are used as currencies and are decentralized.
Bitcoin Cash, created on August 1, 2017, is a hard fork of Bitcoin. Litecoin, created in October of 2011, is a fork of the Bitcoin Core client. They are the fourth and sixth largest cryptocurrencies by market cap at $11.4 billion and $4.3 billion, respectively.
Robinhood has defended its practice of not charging trading fees, despite competitors claiming that the lack of revenue generation leads to lower standards and compromised quality.
“No one does trading for free. It’s just a matter of how you’re paying for it. If someone offers trading at a zero-dollar commission price, then they’re simply making it up in other manners. To say you’re doing a trade for free is just disingenuous. If you’re buying one share of Apple, maybe you don’t care that your execution quality isn’t the highest it could be. If you’re buying a thousand shares of Apple, you care a lot.” – Walt Bettinger, CEO Charles Schwab
The fintech startup, launched in 2013, credits its explosive growth on having efficient, modernized systems that operate without fax machines and other legacy tools that can create drag and bloat. Valued at $5.6 billion, Robinhood has surpassed E-Trade in user numbers and is now one of the largest options brokers in the world with its thriving stock brokerage service.
As for generating profits from cryptocurrency trading, the company says it’s more focused on growing the crypto ecosystem than making any money from it.