Inventory buying and selling app Robinhood seemingly profited off of retail traders who turned to memecoin Dogecoin to protest the buying and selling platform restricting their ability to purchase GameStop shares.
When Robinhood quickly barred its retail clients from shopping for GameStop shares, purportedly as a response to reddit’s r/WallStreetBets group shopping for it in an try to squeeze out the key hedge funds shorting the online game retailer’s inventory, many determined that they’d protest by shopping for Dogecoin (DOGE) as an alternative.
Nevertheless, the plan might have backfired in an enormous approach, in accordance with blockchain analytics agency Elliptic’s chief scientist and co-founder, Tom Robinson.
In accordance with a Feb. 17 Bloomberg report, Robinhood clients’ demand for Dogecoin was so excessive that it apparently made Robinhood the world’s prime holder of the memecoin — which means the platform raked within the charges on an enormous variety of trades. He commented on the richest pockets tackle on the community:
“It nearly definitely belongs to Robinhood… The timings of its creation, and the creation of the addresses that it obtained funds from, match the timings of Robinhood’s assist of Dogecoin.”
A Redditor got here to the identical conclusion in a Feb. 16 post. In his investigation, u/AndreiFromAlberta defined that the pockets apparently receiving these transactions seems to be Robinhood’s present chilly storage tackle. The investigation was apparently made in response to the priority not too long ago expressed by the world’s richest particular person, Elon Musk, that Dogecoin sees an excessive amount of focus and main holders ought to promote their holdings. The submit reads:
“In accordance with my evaluation and calculations of Prime 13 addresses, the actual Dogecoin Whales account for lower than 20% of Prime-13 provide, and fewer than 10% of all Doge provide… So can Elon Musk cease the Over-Focus FUD please? DOGE is not any extra concentrated than TSLA share possession!”
Robinhood did precisely what retail merchants wished it to do as soon as once more, and determined to neither affirm nor deny if it controls mentioned tackle. In a Feb. 17 tweet, the trade wrote:
“We aren’t alone. Similar to different crypto platforms, for operational safety causes and to guard buyer privateness, we won’t affirm which addresses do or don’t belong to us.”
Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev and the CEOs of hedge funds Citadel and Melvin Capital Administration will testify live earlier than the Home Monetary Providers Committee at midday ET on Feb. 18. Robinhood has argued that it didn’t halt buying and selling on GameStop to assist Citadel, a significant shopper and investor, however as a result of it ran wanting money essential to fund the huge quantity of trades.
