​The latest crypto on Robinhood is a stablecoin (?)

Remember when The Boring Company sold flamethrowers?

It didn’t seem to make sense at the time, but turned out to be a great move.

While this is slightly different, it still has a bit of that ‘wtf?’ energy (at least on the surface).

The trading app, Robinhood, just announced that they now allow people to trade USDC on the platform.

But USDC is a stablecoin. It’s tied to the US Dollar; meaning its value is almost always exactly the value of $1 USD.

...and people use Robinhood to buy assets in the hopes they will go up in value.

So, why are they offering USDC?

First off: users want to be able to sell their investments and hold them in a stable currency before reinvesting.

USDC gives users another option, besides converting straight to cash.

Which makes the platform way more crypto friendly.

Now, if users so choose, they can use Robinhood to trade solely in crypto - helping it appeal to a broader range of users, and compete with cryptocurrency exchanges like Coinbase and FTX.

Second: money.

The part of Robinhood’s business model that makes the most money is in selling 'order flow data.'

Which means they're kind of like Facebook, in that their service is free (Robinhood don't charge fees on trades), but they sell the sh#t out of your data.

(Mostly to larger trading companies that want to know which way the market is moving, so they can make better, faster decisions).

And for Robinhood, the more data, the better.