As Coinbase looks to list, Robinhood rides the crypto boom – TechCrunch

As Coinbase looks to list, Robinhood rides the crypto boom – TechCrunch

The impending Coinbase direct listing is a fintech debut to watch. The cryptocurrency-focused consumer trading concern is set to become a public company on the back of a strong 2020, and a particularly strong final quarter.

And it appears that the company is also having a strong kickoff in 2021. What Coinbase is worth is therefore hard to guess, though some are trying, as we’ve noticed.

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But Coinbase is hardly the only company enjoying a crypto bounce: Robinhood, another American consumer fintech we’ve spent too much time discussing in recent weeks, is also riding a wave in its users’ cryptocurrency activity.

Between both companies, we’re seeing signs of the sort of growing consumer interest and trading volume that has historically come with sustained periods of bitcoin price expansion. But Coinbase charges fees for trading, while Robinhood doesn’t. And transaction-fee-based income is the vast majority of Coinbase’s revenues — 96% in calendar 2020, for example.

The situation sets up an interesting contrast.

This morning, let’s see what we can learn about Coinbase’s recent trading volume before looking into Robinhood’s. And finally, we’ll remind ourselves of how Coinbase talked about Robinhood in its S-1 filing. Is Robinhood crypto a possible threat to Coinbase’s consumer trading volumes? Let’s tinker.

An argument called forever

Kicking off with Coinbase, The Block’s Frank Chaparro got us thinking this morning by tweeting the following chart:

You can see why the chart caught our eye. Now, we can’t reproduce the same chart on CryptoCompare, as the tool required sits behind a locked door. But we can, however, leverage other services to confirm the gist of the image.

Other data agrees: Historical trading information via Nomics shows a steep rise in 2021 bitcoin trading on Coinbase Pro, a piece of the larger Coinbase empire. And Bitcoinity shows similar gains for Coinbase trading volumes over the same time period.

Chaparro is correct that the data paints a compelling Q1 2021 revenue story for Coinbase. But it’s not the only company that is seeing crypto demand spike.

Crypto.com Coin (CRO) Price Prediction: Another Pullback Likely

The Crypto.com Coin (CRO) price has been under intense pressure in the past few days. After soaring to an all-time high of $0.2753 almost two weeks ago, it dropped by more than 54% to $0.1260 last week. Since then, it has crawled back and is now trading at $0.1463, bringing its market cap to more than $3.54 billion.

What happened: The digital currency industry struggled last week as many investors started to take profit after having one of the best rallies in modern times. Bitcoin had just reached an all-time high of $58,000 while Ethereum was comfortably above $2,000. Cryptocurrencies also dropped because of the rising Treasury yields in the United States.

Therefore, the Crypto.com Coin price dropped because of its relationship with the overall cryptocurrencies industry. In other words, people tend to value exchange-linked coins like Crypto.com, Huobi, and Binance Coin to the overall action in the industry.

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Crypto.com Coin Prediction

A few days ago, I warned that the Crypto.com coin price would possibly crash to $0.14. At the time, the price was in a strong upward rally that seemed unstoppable. The price then declined to below $0.14.

On the four-hour chart, the price has moved to slightly above the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement level. It is also on the same level as the 25-period and 15-period exponential moving averages, which is a sign of consolidation.

The CRO price has also formed a descending channel that is shown in black. The current price is along the upper side of this channel. Therefore, while an upward pullback is possible, we should not rule out another retest of the lower side of the channel at $0.1255. However, if it breaks above the upper side of the channel, there is a possibility that it will retest the 50% retracement at $0.1680.

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CRO price chart

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Google Finance Adds Crypto Data Tab

Google Finance, a data site maintained by the tech giant, now has a dedicated “crypto” field. And it has prominent placement, too.

Right at the top of the page, where users can “compare markets,” crypto is listed among the five default markets, which also includes U.S., Europe, Asia and “Currencies.”

For some, like the “Documenting Bitcoin” Twitter account that surfaced the new feature, this appears to be a signal of crypto’s growing mainstream presence.

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Bitcoin has surged to ever-new heights this year, propelled primarily by institutional adoption of the asset. From MassMutual to MicroStrategy, bitcoin is increasingly a part of the corporate world.

This sets it apart from the bull market of 2017, which was primarily driven by retail investors. According to Google Trends, searches for “bitcoin” in the past several months have yet to meet the frenzied searching seen three years ago. (Significantly more people are searching “crypto” than “google finance,” for what it’s worth, according to Google Trends.)

Still, crypto is becoming part of the financial firmament.

At the moment, it appears Google Finance only tracks a limited number of cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin, ethereum, litecoin and bitcoin cash are displayed by default when clicking the crypto tab.