Robinhood vs Revolut vs Crypto Exchange – who will win?

Which way of investment would be best for you and your finances? What is the best if you want to buy crypto – Robinhood, Revolut or simply Cryptocurrency Exchange (Trading Platform)? In this article, you will find out what are Robinhood, Revolut, and Crypto Exchange, and which of them is the best platform to crypto invest.

What Robinhood can offer?

Robinhood offers its users the possibility to buy stocks. This allows investing money for greater potential gains or losses. It can be users owned money, or money borrowed from a Robinhood app. The application enables all its customers to purchase stocks easily, even for a small amount of money, so involve risk is pretty low.

Robinhood was founded in 2013. Its founders are Vladimir Tenev and Baiju Bhatt.  The application is addressed to the millennials. It was created to change the face of investing in the capital market and to allow people without a deep portfolio to invest their capital in shares of American companies, ETFs or options, and also in crypto such as Bitcoin (BTC) or Ethereum (ETH). 

Robinhood boasts that with his mobile application you can trade without any trading commissions, completely for free. This message undoubtedly appealed to young investors in particular, as evidenced by the fact that in less than two years the broker gained 2 million active clients

What is important, it does not charge any fees for transactions – so, they re commission-free. Robinhood allows everyone to try their hand at the market. For the time being, it’s only available in the United States, but it also enters the Australian market.

Can you buy crypto on Robinhood?

Cryptocurrency trading is offered through an account with Robinhood Crypto. Users can buy cryptocurrency like: BTC, BCH, BSV, DOGE, ETH, ETC, LTC, and 8 other top crypto coins. They are also planning to support the ability to buy and sell more cryptocurrencies through Robinhood Crypto. All crypto transactions executed using the Robinhood app is making via Robinhood Financial LLC and Robinhood Crypto, LLC. They are wholly-owned subsidiaries of Robinhood Markets. 

Robinhood Crypto fees

All transactions are commission-free on the Robinhood Crypto. According to the founders, the value of the crypto exchange in the application is the growing customer base and better serving existing users. Users can use a free standard account or buy premium version – Robinhood Gold.

How does it work?

All users can instantly transfer up to $1000 from their connected bank account, more if they have a Gold membership. For smaller traders, that could eliminate the annoying delays on other platforms that can make they miss a low price they want to buy up.

When a user wants to a buy or sells order, Robinhood gives him an estimated price, connects to a slew of trading venues, exchanges, and market centres to find the lowest price, and uses its economies of scale to improve to score better prices over time.

However, there are some disadvantages to this solution. Unfortunately, technically we don’t buy any crypto.

Robinhood is not a crypto wallet. By “buying” a bitcoin, we will become the owner of the product whose odds match the odds of bitcoin, not the bitcoin itself.

Where is it possible to use Robinhood Crypto?

Robinhood Crypto is available only in States. Initially, cryptocurrency trading was introduced only in five states: California, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana, and New Hampshire. However, over time it becomes available in other states. Maybe the time will come when Robinhood Crypto will also be available in Europe.

What is Revolut?

Revolut is providing users with the possibility of exchanging money in much better terms than in traditional cantors.  Users can exchange any currency all over the world, by the current rate. The course changes in real-time, it is changed thanks to information from external parties like Morningstar and Currencycloud. Customers can check the course before exchanging their money in the application.

Revolut was created in 2014. Its founders are Nikolay Storonsky and Vlad Yatsenko. Since 2017 Revolut enables exchange cryptocurrencies for all its users (previously this was only possible for premium users).

Revolut is available on three options: Standard, Premium, and Metal. It is a nice and easy way to buy and sell any currency.

Cryptocurrencies on Revolut platform

Revolut is still developing. They added cryptocurrency support to their services. It is available for all premium users, but after sending a request it is also possible to use a cryptocurrency trading on a regular account. Revolut implemented 5 most common cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Ripple. Cryptocurrency investments on Revolut platform are fast and simple, so they are perfect for newcomers. That may be a good way to crypto wider adoption.

What exchange rate does Revolut use?

They are cooperating with Bitstamp – exchange licensed and regulated in Luxembourg. Revolut app stream prices from Bitstamp and calculate the volume-weighted average (VWAP) to take into account price volatility and current demand and supply of the foreign exchange market. So, making cryptocurrency investments via Revolut is a simplified and more accessible version of trading on Bitstamp.

However, a user doesn’t have ownership over a cryptocurrency, because technically customer can’t buy crypto via Revolut. It’s just like in case of Robinhood.

We will be able to send this crypto to our friends, but we won’t do it outside the application. We can only store them.

Cryptocurrency fees

Revolut’s cryptocurrency prices are calculated using the VWAP. From May 2020, Revolut will add a 2.5% markup to the VWAP price “to account for volatility”. If user subscribe Premium or Metal Revolut, then this fee is reduced to 1.5%. Additionally, if standard user exchange more than £5 000 worth of any currency, he will be charged an additional 0.5% in fees. This will happen because his transactions will be categorized as a “high-frequency”.

Is crypto buying on the Revolut platform the best choice?

No doubt it is a good choice to start crypto trading. However, the fact that you can’t use your crypto outside the Revolut is a big downside. That means that the user is locked into buying and selling crypto by price Revolut dictates. Additionally, crypto is not under the control of the user. What’s more, there are cheaper ways to buy cryptocurrencies.

But it has to be admitted that the Revolut is trying to make changes for the better for its crypto service.

Crypto Exchange platform (Trading Platform)

A solution dedicated to cryptocurrencies is a crypto exchange. These are the exchanges that are like the traditional stock exchanges where buyers and sellers are tradings cryptocurrencies. Their prices are based on the current market price of cryptocurrencies (which is how much the users want to pay for the crypto)

Some of these types of exchanges deal only in cryptocurrency but mostly allow users to trade fiat currencies like the U.S. dollar for cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. Most often it requires registration and verification to allow users to exchange their fiat money for cryptocurrencies. There are many different crypto exchanges on the market. Each stock exchange has its own fee for transactions. 

Exchanges may accept credit card payments, wire transfers, or other forms of payment in exchange for cryptocurrencies. Most are also available from different places in the world so that everyone can benefit from these solutions. However, there are certain cons to this solution. The exchanges can charge large transaction fees. Also, often using its services is challenging, especially for new users.

Crypto exchange fees

These types of trading platforms generally charge a fee for each transaction.  They may be calculated as a percentage or as a sum. The exchanges have a cost list on their websites. We will find them in the Fees & Commissions. 

On our trading platform – CoinCasso, all fees are listed in the Fees and Limits page. Fees are relatively low costs compared to other cryptocurrency exchanges.

Other useful features

It is worth mentioning that there are several useful functions on the cryptocurrency exchange. It is much easier to deduce whether it is better to buy or sell crypto because there are the tools necessary for their analysis. This makes it maybe more difficult to use them at first, but over time we learn to use all the functions and they become necessary to earn money on trading.

 

Which of them is the best?

Each of these solutions has different characteristics. Both Revolut and Robinhood are certainly game changers and offer a number of new fintech solutions. However, dedicated solutions, are often the best. 

Exchanges dedicated to cryptocurrencies, like CoinCasso, are the best way to handle cryptocurrency transactions. The value of crypto changes at a very high pace and special solutions are needed to keep up with them.  An important advantage of cryptocurrency exchanges is also the fact that they allow you to buy crypto on your own, giving you the freedom to use them.