- Despite Bitcoin being well off its all-time-high, now appears to be the time to buy for Robinhood’s users who are accustomed to the “buy the dip” mantra.
- But Robinhood Markets (-6.88%) isn’t just pushing to make Bitcoin more tradeable, it’s also making inroads to make it more spendable.
With over 22.7 million customers and more than US$102 billion in assets, Robinhood Markets has captured the imagination and investments of Millennial and Gen Z investors, who, according to the digital trading app, want cryptocurrencies, primarily Bitcoin.
Despite Bitcoin being well off its all-time-high, now appears to be the time to buy for Robinhood’s users who are accustomed to the “buy the dip” mantra.
Speaking at the Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami last week, Robinhood Markets Chief Product Officer Aparna Chennapragada told a cheering audience that Bitcoin was the top recurring “buy” order amongst its users, whose average age is just 31.
Robinhood Markets revolutionized zero-commission trading and forced a legion of legacy brokerages to follow suit.
Half of Robinhood Markets users are either first-time investors or new to the trading app, and this past year, have been buying Bitcoin which signals where they see the future of investment going.
Retail investors made waves earlier last year as they used zero-fee trading apps like Robinhood and SoFi to snap up shares of meme stocks like GameStop and AMC Entertainment, causing billions of dollars in losses for short sellers and hedge funds betting against these companies.
And retail investors could drive cryptocurrency prices higher if they keep up the momentum when it comes to doubling down on a digital asset future.
Although Wall Street has been making tentative steps into cryptocurrencies, retail investors have been major drivers in the markets since the first cryptocurrency exchanges were organized with professional money managers having to play catch up.
Last week, CME Group, working with CF Benchmarks, announced that it would be providing reference prices for an additional 11 other cryptocurrencies outside of Bitcoin and Ether, which would facilitate the creation of more Wall Street-type products and allow for greater institutional participation.
But Robinhood Markets isn’t just pushing to make Bitcoin more tradeable, it’s also making inroads to make it more spendable.
Last week, Robinhood Markets enabled full functionality for the over 2 million customers who were on the waitlist for external cryptocurrency transfers, enabling customers to now send and receive Bitcoin from external Bitcoin wallets, a long-sought feature for cryptocurrency purists who oppose the abstraction of this key functionality.
The move would allow Bitcoin wallets administered by Robinhood Markets to also “spend” Bitcoin the way any other regular Bitcoin wallet could as opposed to the walled garden approach that PayPal and other fintechs take, which do not give users full access and control over their Bitcoin wallets.
