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Robinhood Crypto – Invest in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies

crypto.robinhood.com

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Re: Robinhood Crypto – Invest in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies

#281
post #49
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I put money down on a blackjack table, play a hand, win, and cash out with more money than I put in. How is that not an investment?

A better question might be: How is anything an investment? If the stock market is priced efficiently, it is as much a gamble as Bitcoin. The stock market is of course not perfectly efficient, but it is likely extremely efficient relative to the knowledge of your average retail investor. Which means that buying Bitcoin or other cryptos is no more a gamble than any stock market investment with a similar volatility.

If the stock market is perfectly efficient, standard financial theory says that equity has a positive expected return (relative to the risk free asset).

Re: Robinhood Crypto – Invest in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies

#282

Something about Robinhood just makes me uneasy - clearly their main target market is the small retail investor who is sensitive to a $7/trade fee, but the low friction, mobile-first no fee stock trading experience they've created mostly serves to encourage bad investor behavior i.e. emotional, irrational day trading among people who can least afford it. Now they are "democratizing" margin trading (Robinhood Gold), op…

So do you think the “small retail investor” (Wall St. PC speak for “poor person”) should not be able to take the same risks as those of “ accredited investors”? Accredited investor status is a very non-libertarian idea. By forbidding a class of risks to the lower and middle classes, it excludes them from the corresponding class of rewards. When the lower/middle-class investor can only take a subset of the risks anoth…

It's a lot closer to hunting licenses than voting tests. It's certainly true that preventing the unlicensed from hunting means that their rifles, freezers, four-wheel drives, dogs, and grills have less value than someone who is qualified to hunt. Yet hunters and non-hunters almost universally demand licensing because without a minimal set of knowledge, the risk that an individual is a threat to themselves, others, and the viability of the ecosystem, is rather too high compared to the potential benefits of unrestricted hunting.

From a more pragmatic libertarian perspective, one might also worry about the welfare claims that a person who is ill-equipped to make speculative investments and gets wiped out will make on society. One must also consider debts that they will fail to pay if they are forced to declare bankruptcy (one reason why stock exchanges never let you fund your account from a credit card—unlike coinbase). State-managed bankruptcy and welfare may be seen by some libertarians as incursions on liberty but they are also mechanisms that enable a higher degree of risk-taking and potential innovation from the same class of people who are restricted from some risky sorts of investing. Once you make these provisions you have to manage the costs, but its not clear that a classical libertarian prescription of eliminating state-involvement in bankruptcy and welfare and opening up speculative investments to all would improve class mobility.

The test to become accredited demonstrates that a person has the capacity to handle a failed speculative investment and is less likely to need to socialize their losses (obviously bank bailouts are a counter-example to the point I am making here, but that's just how schizophrenic our regulatory environment is).

Re: Robinhood Crypto – Invest in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies

#283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So do you think the “small retail investor” (Wall St. PC speak for “poor person”) should not be able to take the same risks as those of “ accredited investors”? Accredited investor status is a very non-libertarian idea. By forbidding a class of risks to the lower and middle classes, it excludes them from the corresponding class of rewards. When the lower/middle-class investor can only take a subset of the risks anoth…

>should not be able to take the same risks as those of “accredited investors”? I would say yes. Well, he should be able, if he wants, but is it good for him, really? For example, options trading is useful for hedging large positions in stocks, so you can pay small amount to, um, hedge against corrections in a bull market. By hedging correctly, you can make some money in during correction while avoiding fees associate…

> But options trading without having large positions in stocks? It's not trading, it's lottery. 1% chance of making 10x return and 99% chance of losing the whole bet.

That's a pretty naive statement. Have you ever traded options before? Because it sounds like you haven't. Options like most other securities allow you to chose your risk, everything from lottery type bets to mostly sure deals.

Re: Robinhood Crypto – Invest in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies

#284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that may very well be really bad for consumers. If Robinhood sells to Citadel and Citadel has better execution than IB, you are getting worse prices on IB.

It does not work like this. You will always be crossed on NBB or NBA. The concept of "bad" vs a national best bid or a national best ask can only come via order delay. Better execution via order delay as seen by a customer is always a lie as none of retail brokerages look at the order, look at the 100@101 x 100@101.1 market and say "ok, i'm buying 380K @ 101.09 from you" followed by posting the trade followed by tryi…

No, that's incorrect. They can fill you better than NBBO if they have an internal prediction that NBBO is moving. Or they can fill your sell order at better than bid price, to be more precise.

Re: Robinhood Crypto – Invest in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies

#285
Unrelated to cryptocurrencies, did Robinhood ever managed to roll ability to trade US stocks outside US? From this [1] (almost tree years ago), looks like they started with Australia, but that is it.

Anyone can suggest sane brokerage with API access allowing trading US stocks, ETFs or options for non-US citizens, with minimal deposit? I'm aware of Ameritrade; how about other alternatives?

[1] http://blog.robinhood.com/news/2015/5/4/onward

Re: Robinhood Crypto – Invest in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies

#286

Something about Robinhood just makes me uneasy - clearly their main target market is the small retail investor who is sensitive to a $7/trade fee, but the low friction, mobile-first no fee stock trading experience they've created mostly serves to encourage bad investor behavior i.e. emotional, irrational day trading among people who can least afford it. Now they are "democratizing" margin trading (Robinhood Gold), op…

They have a system in place to deter day trading.

Re: Robinhood Crypto – Invest in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies

#287
post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe, except the college kids who just give all their money to mutual funds will make more money. The day-traders won't "learn how markets work," they'll learn how to lose money by making dumb trades based on less information than their counterparties. They won't learn anything, aaaannnnyyyyything, of actual value.

College kid who started trading in RH a while ago here. After reading some basic investment books from authors like Peter Lynch, Taleb, and What Jim Paul, decided to get some experience in the markets. Invested a little saved and since then made a decent return, better than if that money was in a bank. So far, I'm doing better than the large-company mutual funds after 3 years, but as I've been reading, that's probabl…

The fact you’re browsing HN and have read all those books probably means you’re not the average user (read more intelligent) of RH. Just read the RH subreddit and looks at all the novice questions the users there ask.

Re: Robinhood Crypto – Invest in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies

#288

Something about Robinhood just makes me uneasy - clearly their main target market is the small retail investor who is sensitive to a $7/trade fee, but the low friction, mobile-first no fee stock trading experience they've created mostly serves to encourage bad investor behavior i.e. emotional, irrational day trading among people who can least afford it. Now they are "democratizing" margin trading (Robinhood Gold), op…

They have a system in place to deter day trading.

> The government has a system in place.

Re: Robinhood Crypto – Invest in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies

#290
post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know much about ETH, but would it be possible to write a contract using an escrow concept? I.e., there would be a wallet that eventually would pay out to one party in one circumstance, and to some other party in some other circumstance. (If you want to get complicated, it could even blend payouts among multiple parties.) We wouldn't have to trust you not to get hit by a bus, because the value wouldn't be in y…

If the value is not in my wallet then how do I get cash to pay for a house etc. Escrow accounts are fine if I am doing contracting work, but that are not a loan.

Ah, ok, I think now I better understand the point you made above. I can accept that value per se is only created by one or more parties, but the coin itself can make it easier for them to do so profitably.
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