Starting in February, no-cost stock trading app Robinhood will allow users to trade Bitcoin and Ethereum with no fees whatsoever, the company has announced in a blog post Thursday, Jan. 25.

The announcement is a welcome one to users of other cryptocurrency exchanges who have grown accustomed to paying fees ranging from 0.1% to as high as 4% per transaction on platforms like Coinbase.

Robinhood is also allowing users to track the price of a number of other cryptocurrencies including Ripple and Litecoin, although the actual trading feature will only be available for Bitcoin and Ethereum.

The company’s intention is to use the zero-fee cryptocurrency trading feature as a “loss-leader”, allowing it to bring more traders onto its platform, which can already boast more than 3 mln users.

Robinhood co-founder Vlad Tenev told TechCrunch:

“We’re planning to operate this business on break even basics and we don’t plan to profit from it for the foreseeable future. The value of Robinhood Crypto is in growing our customer base and better serving our existing customers.”

Additionally, by offering simple-to-use analysis and transaction tools, the company hopes to pull in more users as well.

“We believe that cryptocurrencies have the potential to fundamentally reorganize the way money works from the ground up, putting power previously held by financial institutions directly in the hands of the people,” Robinhood added in its announcement.

Author: Jon Buck