In the modern sign of tremendous interest in cryptocurrencies, more than 1 million individual have joined the waitlist for Robinhood Crypto in just four days.
No-fee store trading app Robinhood announced Thursday it was rolling out commission-free trading in digital currencies bitcoin and ethereum day one in February. Although the service will initially only be available in very recently five states, within one day after that announcement hundreds of thousands of people had manifest they wanted to be notified about “early access” to cryptocurrency interchange.
Around 1 p.m., ET, Monday, that number had more than doubled to 1 million. If all those sign-ups adorn come of Robinhood Crypto customers, that will mark an increase of multitudinous than 30 percent to the company’s overall user base of assorted than 3 million.
“Despite the downturn in price and the fraud in Japan, the portion in the cryptospace remains very high,” said Tom Lehrkinder, senior analyst at consulting obstinate Tabb Group. “More and more [futures commission merchants] are starting to off and settle the bitcoin futures contracts.”
Bitcoin’s price skyrocketed definitive year from below $1,000 to above $19,000 as investors bagged in, generating demand from institutional investors for futures contracts that floated December on the largest futures exchange, CME, and its competitor, Cboe. Coinbase, the peerless U.S. marketplace for major digital currencies, saw its users more than spitting image from fewer than 5 million in late 2016 to more than 13 million by the end of the dedicating year.
Coinbase did not respond to a CNBC request for comment on Robinhood Crypto’s start. The stock-trading app had nothing to add on Monday’s 1 million sign-ups, other than a tweet from co-founder Baiju Bhatt declaring the figure.
“To me, this speaks to a generational interest in crypto,” said Blockchain Funds co-founder Bart Stephens.
About one in three millennials preferred bitcoin to supplies in a survey last fall from venture capital firm Blockchain Finances and Harris Poll. And Robinhood said 78 percent of its users get under way into that younger age category of 18 to 35-year-olds.
But “what Robinhood’s successful to find quickly is they’re going to jump right into the verbatim at the same time growing pains that Coinbase has,” Stephens said.
While the cryptocurrency trade reportedly took in more than $1 billion in revenue survive year, the company struggled to handle high demand and trading was now unavailable. Coinbase said in a statement it would not comment on the accuracy of the fathoms.
Robinhood co-founder Vlad Tenev told CNBC last week he is dauntless the start-up can handle customer demand. Cryptocurrency trading will also initially be boomed out in just California, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana and New Hampshire.
“I think we’re flourishing to be seeing more and more of these on-ramps,” Stephens said. “I characterize as this is the beginning of a huge wave embracing this asset breeding.”