Coinbase is about to get a serious run for its (cryptographic) money.
Robinhood Crypto, the zero-fee cryptocurrency trading platform announced last month by Robinhood, has begun rolling out to the first wave of customers over the past few days. The service will initially be available in customers in California, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana, and New Hampshire- with plans to release it in other states later on. While the availability will be limited for a while compared to Coinbase and other major exchanges, the service could make significant inroads in the areas that do have access, thanks to the ability to trade without having to pay a fee every time. This will be a big savings compared to Coinbase, for example, where a buy or sell can have a fee of 1.5 to 4 percent added on each time. Fees like those really add up, especially on large purchases- so Robinhood really has a chance to shake things up here if all goes well.
At launch, the service will allow users to buy and sell Bitcoin and Ethereum, and will also be able to track the prices and news for those coins as well as 14 others- Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Ripple, Ethereum Classic, Zcash, Monero, Dash, Stellar, Qtum, Bitcoin Gold, OmiseGo, NEO, Lisk and Dogecoin. Tracking is now available for everyone, with trading coming to waitlisted users and more states soon.