Why Cant I Buy Crypto On Robinhood

There are some advantages to using the trading app, only information technology isn’t right for everyone.

Robinhood is best known as the stock trading app that pioneered the concept of commission-gratis trading several years before most brokerages got rid of their trading costs. Merely you can besides purchase Bitcoin and six other cryptocurrencies directly through the app.

Similar all cryptocurrency trading platforms, Robinhood isn’t the all-time choice for anybody. Here’south a rundown of the key advantages and disadvantages of using Robinhood to buy Bitcoin.

Benefits of using Robinhood to purchase Bitcoin

Robinhood pioneered commission-gratuitous stock trading several years ago, and while its competitors have largely defenseless up to the company’s pricing structure in the brokerage side of the concern, the same cannot be said of cryptocurrency trading.

Specifically, many of Robinhood’southward meridian competitors have expensive and somewhat hard-to-understand pricing structures. For case, Coinbase charges a 1.49% trading fee for nigh transactions, and so if y’all want to buy $500 worth of Bitcoin, you pay almost $7.fifty. And that’due south on height of a markup, or spread, you pay over the current market price. To exist off-white, Robinhood makes coin from the spread betwixt its current buy and sell prices, merely that’southward it — no other fees apply.

There’s as well value in having your cryptocurrency holdings and stock investments in the same like shooting fish in a barrel-to-use app, and Robinhood certainly lets you practise that. Many people wait at Bitcoin equally an addition to their investment portfolios, and then information technology makes a lot of sense to go along all of your investments in one place. With Robinhood, you can. With many other cryptocurrency exchanges, not so much.

Drawbacks of using Robinhood to purchase Bitcoin

By far, the biggest drawback to Robinhood’s cryptocurrency trading platform is that
all
you can do is buy, hold, and sell your cryptocurrencies. In other words, you
can’t
send your Bitcoin to another cryptocurrency wallet, spend it on real-world purchases, or receive Bitcoin from other people. Information technology doesn’t have nearly as much functionality equally most leading cryptocurrency exchanges practise.

Robinhood also offers far fewer educational resource and other features. Information technology is mainly a place where you can buy, concur, and sell Bitcoin and a few other types of cryptocurrency. If you buy Bitcoin on Robinhood and it goes up in value, you can sell it and make coin. Merely there aren’t many other reasons to employ Robinhood for your cryptocurrency needs.

Finally — and this point won’t apply to investors who just want to buy Bitcoin — more avid cryptocurrency traders will detect that in that location are other platforms with far more cryptocurrencies to choose from than the 7 Robinhood offers. If you want to invest in Bitcoin and the other most pop digital avails, Robinhood probably has what you need. Just if you’re thinking of putting some of your money in smaller, up-and-coming cryptocurrencies, you might desire to expect elsewhere. For example, Coinbase offers more than ninety tradeable coins.

Should
you
use Robinhood to buy Bitcoin?

The brusque answer is that information technology depends
why
you want to buy Bitcoin. If your goal is to pay for purchases using Bitcoin, or if you want to ship Bitcoin to friends or to an external Bitcoin wallet, Robinhood is not the best choice for you. On the other hand, if your goal is simply to concur Bitcoin and benefit from rising prices over time, Robinhood tin can be an easy and low-price way to do it, especially if you’re already using the platform for stock trading.