Tag: Robinhood

Robinhood faces another compliance reckoning! The trading platform will pay FINRA $26M for ignoring red flags, failing to verify customers, and misleading investors—adding to a growing list of regulatory penalties. With over $200M in fines in recent years, including a $70M FINRA penalty in 2021, Robinhood’s oversight failures continue to pile up. What’s next for the retail trading giant?

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Tron founder Justin Sun have jointly requested a stay in their civil fraud lawsuit, signaling a potential settlement in the case. This development is part of a broader trend of the SEC dropping or pausing cryptocurrency-related lawsuits under the new Trump administration.

In the FTX bankruptcy saga, three distinct groups have lodged competing claims over assets seized from former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) following his criminal conviction. In March, the Federal High Court's $11 billion forfeiture order included various properties such as crypto tokens, private jets, and bank funds. Now, the FTX debtors' estate, a class of creditors, and an offshore entity founded by SBF are all vying for control over these assets.

It is the first major acquisition in the crypto sector in 2024. The California-based fintech Robinhood has agreed to acquire the global crypto exchange Bitstamp. This acquisition is set to expand Robinhood’s reach, bringing Bitstamp’s services to retail and institutional customers. Founded in 2011, Bitstamp operates in Luxembourg, the UK, Slovenia, Singapore, and the US. The acquisition, anticipated to close in the first half of 2025, is subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals.

Robinhood, the U.S. fintech renowned for pioneering commission-free stock trading, is currently under scrutiny from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for its crypto business, Bloomberg reports. In a Wells Notice, the U.S. regulator informed Robinhood that it faces enforcement action over its crypto business — the latest sign that the SEC isn’t letting up on its years-long crackdown on digital assets.

The recent sharp rise in crypto prices points to the next crypto bull run. This means that regulated retail brokers such as Robinhood, Trade Republic, Coinbase, and Bitpanda will be courting customers and their funds, and scammers will be looking for potential victims with fake campaigns. If you plan to try your luck as a retail trader, you should first spend a lot of time selecting your broker. Avoid unregulated providers at all costs.

Amidst the challenges posed by the crypto winter since early 2022, fintech brokers like the German-based Trade Republic and its American counterpart Robinhood are gearing up for a shift in the tide. Trade Republic recently made headlines with its new banking license awarded by Germany's BaFin, marking a significant milestone. Meanwhile, Robinhood is expanding to Europe, introducing its crypto app to the European market, aiming to allure users with attractive rewards and competitive fees.

One of the clearest indicators that an economic downturn, if not a recession, is knocking at the door is when companies start with layoffs. Twitter was this week just the last tech giant that announced and executed a massive layoff, allegedly firing half of its staff. Stripe CEO Patrick Collison announced the layoffs of over 14% of its workforce, amounting to more than 1,000 jobs. Raid-hailing operator Lyft announced the layoff 13% of its workforce, or nearly 700. Brace for the Tech Winter.

The online trading platform Robinhood, which popularized one-click trading and helped fuel last year’s meme stock frenzy, announced that it would lay off about 23 percent of its workforce. It is the second layoff initiative within just a few months. In a blog post, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev said that the layoffs would affect employees across the company, especially those in operations, marketing, and program management roles. Shares of Robinhood rose 11.7% on Wednesday following the layoff announcement.

The vegan crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried founded the crypto broker FTX in April 2019 and has since been on an aggressive acquisition trip around the world. FTX acquired the CySEC-regulated K-DNA Financial Services Ltd and the ASIC-regulated Australian ITFS Markets Pty Ltd in March 2022. A few weeks ago, WSJ reported a $648 million investment in Robinhood in exchange for 7.6% of the company’s shares. In recent weeks, the FTX founder has also stepped up as a financier in Elon Musk's Twitter acquisition. He is a busy guy!

Forbes has been closely associated with the world's largest crypto exchange, Binance, for at least a couple of weeks. FinTelegram reported that Binance had invested $200 million in preparing the Forbes listing on the NYSE. The investment made the crypto exchange the second-largest shareholder of the online business publication. In its new Top 10 ranking of crypto exchanges, Forbes ranked Binance as #6. Coinbase, Kraken and Robinhood lead the ranking.

The U.S. SEC is already looking into the GameStop scheme currently performed. The German and UK regulators BaFin and FCA, too, warned against it and similar stock schemes. On the other hand, celebrities like Elon Musk seem to endorse these new stock games driven by online boiler rooms on Reddit or Telegram and online trading platforms and apps like eToro, Robin Hood, Interactive Brokers, or Kraken. Social media-based market manipulation or the next generation trading approach, that's the question. Anyway, it's scammers' paradise.