
You Can Now Trade Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash on Robinhood Crypto - sahin-boydas
https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/12/you-can-now-trade-litecoin-and-bitcoin-cash-on-robinhood-crypto/
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dawhizkid
Said it once before: do not link your bank account on RH with Plaid (i.e. bank
login). Plaid is the API they use that includes access to your account balance
and entire transaction history!
([https://plaid.com/products/transactions/](https://plaid.com/products/transactions/))

RH Privacy Policy:
[https://d2ue93q3u507c2.cloudfront.net/assets/robinhood/legal...](https://d2ue93q3u507c2.cloudfront.net/assets/robinhood/legal/RHF%20Privacy%20and%20Security.pdf)

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whockey
Hey! Co-founder of Plaid (plaid.com) here. RH does not pull your transaction
history, RH is only using Plaid to authenticate your ACH accounts to make sure
your actually the owner of the account and so you don't get over-drafted.
They're using our auth and balance product, feel free to check out what
information we return on our docs
([http://plaid.com/docs](http://plaid.com/docs)).

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beaner
But they could potentially use you for more and users don't have insight into
whether or not they do or if it will change.

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dawhizkid
Agreed there is no transparency around which endpoints are being used. There
needs to be a screen that shows what data you’re providing like FB or Google
login before you link anything.

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ram_rar
Kudos to the product guys. They have figured out the demographic of their
product with clinical precision. In Last 6 months, I have used RH app lot more
than FB. Nothing is as addictive as using leverage to trade options and
Crypto.

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sushid
I have no comment on crypto but if you're "addictively" using leverage to
trade options, I hope you're only playing with your throwaway money. You are
practically bound to lose money to institutional investors when playing with
options.

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a13n
> You are practically bound to lose money to institutional investors when
> playing with options.

Source? Explanation?

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hangonhn
Do most non-institutional/non-professional traders even know how to price
options other than some gut feel? Are they familiar with Black-Sholes and the
Greeks? From my personal experience most of them don't. Plus to properly model
these things requires quite a bit of research and calculations. At the hedge
fund where I worked, there were well over 600 top of the line Xeon servers
running to constantly pull in data and crunch the numbers. This was in the
early 2000s. Things are probably even more lopsided now. Trading and finance
are professions in the same sense software engineering is (there's quite a bit
of overlap in skills too). Unless you're a professional who has the time and
resources to do it, you're at a severe disadvantage and are going to lose in
the long run.

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tedunangst
One possibility is getting leverage via deep in the money options, which are
very easy to price. But I guess that's not what most people are talking about.

But also, spreads are pretty tight for close dated near the money options.
Just assume the price is right, pick a direction, and trade...

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sushid
Sure, you'll make money 99.9% of the time but the time you don't, you'll be
losing your money and then some.

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tedunangst
But that has little to do with whether you have 600 xeons to run black sholes.

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siavosh
Every time I hear "democratize" financial system from a FinTech or blockchain
"company" it immediately raises alarm bells. Usually it's a euphemism for
democratizing investor exploitation.

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anoncoward111
Nobody invests, specifically in these coins. Everyone speculates, even in
bonds :)

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erubin
there is a fundamental difference between securities which have a claim on
real assets and produce cashflows and those that don't

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anoncoward111
I completely agree, and that also does not make those securities
"investments". Additionally, even someone who "invests" (literally "putting
clothes onto") into an account at Ally bank for 1.4% interest per year or
something is still speculating on a few things-- namely that Ally will remain
solvent and that their security measures are sufficient enough to ensure you
will get your money in and out without much problem.

Bitcoin certainly is more speculative than GE stock, but look at GE's stock
performance and dividend performance. Anyone who thought they were investing
into the long term value of a major American company was actually speculating
as to whether or not a blue chip stock could produce cash flow and maintain
the value of real assets, which, they couldn't do so as well as they did 20
years ago.

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justboxing
Obligatory RobinHood Tweet [2016]:

"Trade fast, die young."
[https://twitter.com/robinhoodapp/status/756262680537759744](https://twitter.com/robinhoodapp/status/756262680537759744)

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21
I feel that at some point regulators will move on RobinHood for the way they
push trading.

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tedunangst
Why? Brokerages like etrade have pushed trading for decades.

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21
What's important it's the way you push trading.

You are only allowed to advertise it in particular ways. Here, it feels like
they glamorize YOLO trades (as they are popularly called)

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curiousgal
Obligatory warning: don't trade more than you can afford to lose.

I can't see how making leveraged trading accessible to the large masses is
beneficial to anyone other than the app makers and institutional investors.

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hbcondo714
I signed up for Robinhood earlier this year and provided all my personal info
including SSN but was notified afterwards that cryptos were not available for
trading in California.

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ddtaylor
I'm happy to see more adoption of Bitcoin Cash!

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Zaskoda
Hooray Litecoin...

