Robinhood traders slammed the investment app after the cryptocurrency platform suffered a major outage in the midst of Dogecoin’s record rally.
Robin Hood said the crypto trading service started to go haywire at 10pm on Thursday – just as the price of the meme-inspired currency started to soar.
The disruption infuriated Robinhood users who accused the social media startup of deliberately blocking them from cashing in on the Dogecoin surge, which roughly quadrupled the price of the cult coin in five days.
How handy. Robinhood always has issues when their customers make money, ”one person said on Twitter Thursday, where Robinhood was a trending topic early Friday.
“I swear to god, if Robinhood does anything to mess with my #doge profit, they’ll get a one-way ticket to the sun,” another exasperated trader wrote
The outage came when Dogecoin’s price rose to nearly 30 cents late Thursday, more than double where it traded that afternoon, according to CoinDesk.
The bounce came after the crypto-focused news outlet reported on the meat stick brand Slim Jim’s efforts to increase its Twitter followers by getting in touch with Dogecoin posts.
The digital currency – which started out as a joke – jumped further to a new record high of nearly 33 cents Friday morning, before comparing its profit at 8:19 a.m. to trading at 30.9 cents, up more than 5,700 percent for the year yielded. , Showing CoinDesk data.
Robin Hood said it had ‘fully recovered’ its crypto trading functions on Thursday at 11:46 pm. It blamed the high demand for its cryptocurrency platform.
So is the Silicon Valley company flatly denied allegations that it had imposed restrictions on Dogecoin trading, as it did on so-called meme stocks like GameStop and AMC Entertainment in late January.
“Unprecedented demand for Robinhood Crypto services has created temporary problems with crypto trading,” a Robinhood spokesperson told The Post on Friday. “That’s all, plain and simple.”
But the company’s explanation did not detract from online criticism of the app, which also reportedly suffered from outages when the coronavirus pandemic hit global stock markets in March 2020.
“Robinhood is fucking their customers again,” said a Twitter user as the “chair” of Reddit’s famous WallStreetBets message board. tweeted late Thursday. “Utter idiot. You call yourself Robinhood but take off the poor …”
Despite the outrage, Robinhood was the most popular free app on Apple’s App Store Friday morning amid the crypto frenzy.
Robinhood grappled with the crypto commotion after escalating the clash with Massachusetts securities regulators, who accused it of encouraging inexperienced investors to take unnecessary risks.
The Bay State Securities Division asked Thursday to revoke the registration of Robinhood’s broker-dealer, saying the company was “continuing a pattern of aggressively inducing and enticing trading between its clients,” according to The Wall Street Journal.
But Robinhood said it had filed its own complaint with the Massachusetts state court to prevent the regulators’ case from proceeding, while challenging the state fiduciary rule under which the case was brought.
“By blocking Robinhood, the division is seeking to bring its residents back in time and restore the financial barriers Robinhood had set up to break,” Robinhood said in a blog post on Thursday.