Robinhood: With great popularity comes great scrutiny

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Robinhood has raised more money since Thursday ($3.4B in total) than it has in the previous eight years of its existence. Mind-blowing! It's even reportedly considering taking an additional $1B in debt in the coming days.

What is Robinhood doing?

It has been busy fortifying its finances for the next onslaught from Reddit traders. Robinhood wants to make sure it has enough collateral on hand to cover its obligations to 3rd partners that settle trades, which have been through the roof.

So Is Robinhood in trouble?

Nah. On Friday, revenue-generating trades on Robinhood were 4x greater than last summer's average, according to the FT. Despite the massive backlash across Twitter and Reddit, Robinhood is currently No. 1 on Apple's free app charts and was downloaded more than 600,000 times on Friday alone.

Still, it's not all rosy for Robinhood. Its CEO Vlad Tenev is expected to testify before the House Financial Services Committee on Feb. 18 about his company's role in the GameStop saga.

Bottom line, Robinhood is very much alive and kicking. Love or hate Robinhood, Reddit and other retail traders are staying on the platform. The ease with which it was able to raise the money is mind boggling and speaks volumes to the opportunity ahead of Robinhood.


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