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Overnight, Robinhood experienced issues executing users' crypto-asset trades for a few hours, blaming it on "unprecedented demand" for crypto services. At the same time, commission-free Robinhood continues to face headwinds from regulators. For example, the Massachusetts Securities Division published an administrative complaint that Robinhood has "continued a pattern of aggressively inducing and enticing trading among its customers - including Massachusetts customers with little or no investment experience." Yesterday, Robinhood filed a complaint and motion in the Massachusetts State Court to block the complaint.

Robinhood has agreed to pay $65m to settle U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charges that it failed to provide its customers with the best prices for trades on its platform. While Robinhood promoted its services as "commission free", its customers' orders were processed at prices "inferior" to other brokers. They also failed to disclose payments received from high-speed trading houses that process its orders. The SEC found that Robinhood had deprived customers of $34.1m because of those payments. https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2020-321

Stock and cryptocurrency trading app Robinhood is making plans to add the Bitcoin Lightning Network to its platform for speedier Bitcoin transactions. It also shared that eligible users from its beta crypto waitlist can now send and receive crypto through its crypto wallet feature. Robinhood currently offers trading in Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, Litecoin, Ethereum Classic, Bitcoin Cash, and Bitcoin SV, with adding crypto deposits and withdrawals being the next natural step the company is taking into crypto.

Robinhood launched trading services for over 25 crypto-assets on its platform for all eligible European Union customers. This comes just a week after the firm launched its stock trading application in the United Kingdom. The new crypto app charges zero trading fees, and customers will also receive a percentage of their trading volume back every month in Bitcoin. The new platform also prioritizes transparency, allowing customers to view the spread, including the rebate received by the company from sell and trade orders in the app. https://newsroom.aboutrobinhood.com/robinhood-launches-crypto-trading-in-the-eu/

Trading platform Robinhood announced that an "unauthorized third party" managed to obtain personal information of their customers, although no social security numbers, bank account numbers, or debit card numbers were exposed. A list of email addresses for approximately five million people, and full names for a different group of approximately two million people, were obtained.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will not be taking enforcement action against Robinhood Crypto. This follows the SEC issuing a Wells Notice last year warning of impending legal action relating to crypto custody, cryptocurrency listings and platform operations. Under acting SEC Chair Mark Uyeda, several crypto related cases have been dropped or paused. It recently dropped the investigation into NFT platform OpenSea and on Friday Coinbase said its SEC court case would end, subject to Commissioner approval. Earlier this month the SEC paused its case against Binance. Plus, it withdrew its appeal in its attempt to expand the definition of brokers to include liquidity providers.

Seattle-based Bittrex today launched tokenized stocks for GameStop and other companies that have been booted off Robinhood. The listings include AMC Entertainment, Nokia, BlackBerry, Nokia Corporation, and iShares Silver Trust-all companies which are being eyed-up by internet traders who want to give the finger to Wall Street. And Bittrex isn't the only exchange capitalizing on the restrictions: FTX announced today that it was listing a WallStreetBets (WSB) index quarterly futures contract in light of Robinhood's move. And on Thursday it made GameStop's stock for tokenized futures and spot trading.

Each user's funds will be covered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation up to $1.25 million. To get around the $250,000 FDIC limit per bank, Robinhood is partnering with six banks that it will spread a user's cash across as necessary to bundle up to that sum.

Robinhood intends to implement crypto-asset deposits and withdrawals. While customers have been able to buy and sell crypto-assets via the platform for some time, they are unable to access the coins themselves to transfer them to other wallets.

Robinhood is adding cryptocurrency wallets to its platform so that users can spend and trade their Bitcoin and Ethereum. The wallets will start as a test, and the company's setting up a waitlist where people can sign up to be among the first to get access. Testing with an alpha group will start in the next few weeks. The company will take the alpha users' feedback and address it on Twitter and its blog. People on the waitlist will start getting access to wallets by the end of 2021 and the wallets will be generally available in early 2022.

A consortium of fintech and crypto-asset companies launched the Global Dollar Network based on the U.S. dollar-pegged USDG stablecoin issued out of Singapore by Paxos. Paxos claims that USDG is "substantively compliant with the upcoming Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) stablecoin framework. Anchorage Digital, Bullish, Galaxy Digital, Kraken, Nuvei, Paxos and Robinhood are the initial partners. What is unique about USDG, versus the dominant stablecoins, is that partners (financial services and blockchain firms) receive up to 100% of the revenues generated by USDG's backing assets, and earn additional revenues for minting and acceptance. https://globaldollar.com

The Stellar Development Foundation, a non-profit organization that supports the development and growth of the Stellar blockchain network announced a $5m investment in Abra, a leading cryptocurrency wallet and exchange application, as part of an overall strategic partnership between the two organizations.

Walmart is partnering with Ribbit Capital, an investor in stock-trading platform Robinhood, to "deliver tech-driven financial experiences tailored to Walmart's customers and associates. Walmart, which already offers a number of financial products, including credit cards, cheque cashing, money transfers and installment financing, has yet to give any specific details on its product plans, although partnerships with other fintechs and acquisitions are written into the business blueprint.

Plaid serves as the connective glue between financial apps like Robinhood and Credit Karma and customers' bank accounts. Through the use of application programming interfaces (APIs), the San Francisco-based fintech links the two sides, allowing financial data to flow between them.

The most important facets of dFMI are the removal of systemic risk, a 24/7 market, confining risk to just the counterparties, resilient infrastructure, ambient legal and regulatory compliance, faster but liquidity preserving settlement, the preservation of anonymity and privacy and the removal of asset silos. Most projects focus on a subset of these facets. The choice is to do incremental transformation or a more radical change. It is evident that the dominant FMIs and market players are resistant to change as their very existence and fat margins are threatened by the new world and they will be compelled by a combination of forces to transform or be replaced.

Visa's $5.3 billion deal to buy Plaid is reportedly in jeopardy because of U.S. Department of Justice antitrust concerns. Plaid makes software that allows banks and fintechs to plug into consumers' various financial accounts, enabling those companies, with users' permission, to aggregate spending data, look up balances and verify other personal financial information. Its clients and partners include digital money-transfer service Venmo and stock-trading app Robinhood.

"Lightning Labs raised a Series B funding round, led by Valor Equity Partners and global asset manager Baillie Gifford, both early backers of Tesla and SpaceX. Among other high-profile investors are Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev, NYDIG and Silvergate CEO Alan Lane. This follows on a $10 million Series A in 2020, following an even earlier investment by Twitter and Block co-founder Jack Dorsey. Stark declined to disclose the firm's post-money valuation."

According to a Reuters report, FTX chief Sam Bankman-Fried transferred at least $4 billion in FTX funds to Alameda Research, including native token FTT and shares in Robinhood. The transfers were made after Alameda, Bankman-Fried's trading firm, suffered losses from deals in May and June, including a loan agreement with Voyager Digital, Reuters said, citing people close to the subject. These funds included customer deposits.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has dropped its investigation into Uniswap Labs, the Brooklyn-based company behind the decentralized protocol of the same name. The SEC's decision to close its investigation into Uniswap Labs is the latest in a wave of similarly-dropped investigations into crypto companies, including Robinhood Crypto and non-fungible token marketplace OpenSea. The SEC has also agreed to drop its case against Coinbase, pending approval from the agency's commissioners, according to the crypto exchange.

"If the GameStop saga proves to be more than just a momentary anomaly, we might presently be witnessing the emergence of a profound change in the financial system or the creation of an entirely new one. As financial technology companies made it easier for consumers to participate in financial markets, DEXs are tackling the flaws of centralized markets. In some ways, this generation of DEXs may become the new Robinhood's. Perhaps this is one of those moments where the people, and not institutional legacy, will define the future."