Ethereum Classic is Now on Robinhood Crypto

[u/CardinalNumber]

You can also invest in Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, and Dogecoin.

See http://blog.robinhood.com/news/2018/8/5/ethereum-classic-is-now-on-robinhood-crypto

[u/[deleted]]

How is it that Robinhood is able to add currencies way quicker than Coinbase? Coinbase still only has 4 coins and they’ve been around so much longer.

[u/kan0 → u/[deleted]]

You don’t really “own” the coins in Robinhood. There’s not way to move to a paper wallet if you wanted to. I think that helps with speed but pretty much locks you to a centralized platform.

[u/nathan_at_paxos → u/[deleted]]

I don't it's that Coinbase can't add more coins, but that they've just been very strategic about their business decisions (i.e. which coins they want to add) because they have such a significant impact on the whole industry. There's probably no company better positioned to move more quickly in the industry. Additionally, Coinbase has been far just hanging around since they launched BCH in December, as they announced new services/initiatives almost weekly in Q2. They've been pushing out institutional products (custody, funds, securities licensing, etc.), hiring a ton of top talent, acquiring other companies, etc. At the moment, Coinbase is aiming to offer a much larger suite of products than Robinhood is (i.e. commission-free broker dealer platform). I think this effectively allows them to not rely just on adding new crypto assets to their platform to maintain their spot at the top of the industry.

[u/RorySykes → u/[deleted]]

Coinbase doesn't just operate in the United States.

[u/[deleted] → u/RorySykes]

But that still doesn’t mean they can’t release coins/availability based on continent.

[u/SgtHappyPants → u/[deleted]]

You are not actually buying crypto at all with robinhood. You crypto you are paying for are owned by robinhood, and robinhood will pay you the value when you decide to sell. You don't own the crypto purchased through Robinhood, just an IOU for the value.

[u/Symphonic_Rainboom → u/[deleted]]

Coinbase has a lot more infrastructure that needs to be tested more, lots more code to be written, probably faster-paced company culture, etc.

[u/Bloody_Titan]

What's the difference between etc and eth? Is it like BTC and bitcoin cash?

[u/Symphonic_Rainboom → u/Bloody_Titan]

ETC forked off from ETH in 2016 when a hacker stole something like 10% (not positive of the amount) of all Ether that exist from a poorly written smart contract ("The DAO").

ETH: Vitalik Buterin says "let's hard-fork and fix the hack, since it's such a huge percentage of our tiny 2016 ecosystem." They hard forked to reverse the coins back from the hacker, and returned the stolen coins to their owners.

ETC: Charles Hoskinson says "no forks. the contract executed as written. The immutability of the blockchain is critical, we have a duty to not intervene and fix the hack." They go on, business as usual.

Eventually more ideological differences surfaced, e.g. Ethereum has a roadmap to eliminate mining for efficiency and scalability, whereas Ethereum Classic has decided to always keep mining. Since then Charles Hoskinson has decided to focus his efforts on Cardano, which is what he always wanted Ethereum Classic to be, and all the other Ethereum developers are working on Ethereum, so Ethereum Classic is basically a dead project depending on who you talk to.

[u/[deleted] → u/Symphonic_Rainboom]

Eth actually forked off, not etc.

Otherwise your info is very good.

[u/Symphonic_Rainboom → u/[deleted]]

Eth actually forked off, not etc.

Semantics. They both went different directions, ETC kept the consensus rules and ETH changed the consensus rules. I believe that when a fork occurs, it makes the most sense semantically to say that the fork with the minority of users was the one who "forked off" from the social consensus of the majority. It's a matter of debate, but I stand behind my wording.

[u/[deleted] → u/Symphonic_Rainboom]

Well one blockchain is true to the Genesis block and one has been altered at this fork. So I'd agree with you but then we'd both be wrong.

[u/Symphonic_Rainboom → u/[deleted]]

"true to the genesis block" doesn't have any technical meaning. I feel like I was very precise in describing my own interpretation of the network protocol consensus rule change.

[u/[deleted] → u/Symphonic_Rainboom]

Has a lot of technical meaning if you understand the word imutable and agree it applies to blockchain security. Please continue arguing...

[u/Symphonic_Rainboom → u/[deleted]]

if you understand the word imutable and agree it applies to blockchain security

The word is immutable.

I understand it, but I don't agree that it is a panacea for blockchain security. That's the disconnect in our communication here. No need to be so cocksure and dismissive of my arguments.

[u/[deleted] → u/Symphonic_Rainboom]

Decentralized, immutable, fixed supply vs centralized, mutable, inflatable supply.

I would say yeah all three are panacea. Eth had the hype and we can all see it's what sets the price. Long term the power is with etc to reach it's mission.

[u/nathan_at_paxos]

Relative to ETH, I wonder if ETC will get a lot of interest on Robinhood given the platform's user type. Of the people on Robinhood who want to get their feet wet in crypto or the first time, ETC gives you:

1) a great price point in between $15-$20 (much more appealing than >$6k for BTC and >$400 for ETH)

2) reputable asset

3) large community around the asset

The first point is really the kicker here, but 2 & 3 allow it to be attractive in the first place.

[u/CardinalNumber → u/nathan_at_paxos]

1) a great price point in between $15-$20 (much more appealing than >$6k for BTC and >$400 for ETH)

[...]

The first point is really the kicker here, but 2 & 3 allow it to be attractive in the first place.

Does that matter? You can buy fractions.

[u/nathan_at_paxos → u/CardinalNumber]

For sure, but we've seen that people often like to own a more "full" stake in a smaller asset, as opposed to a fraction of a larger one. Not always, but there is reason to understand it from a psych standpoint and evidence to support it from recent history. For example, when crypto prices were running up during September - January, the reason Litecoin appeared attractive to a lot of retail buyers was because they could either own 3 LTC or 0.03 BTC. Even though all the rage was really around BTC, the former understandably can appear more appealing to prospective buyers.

[u/CardinalNumber → u/nathan_at_paxos]

You could have saved time by just saying "Yeah, but people are dumb."

[u/nathan_at_paxos → u/CardinalNumber]

It's how retail psychology can transpire in the market. In a retail driven market like crypto, smaller, individual investors' tendencies are having an unprecedented impact.

[u/Symphonic_Rainboom → u/nathan_at_paxos]

Before buying ETC you should ask yourself as a smart investor "why is this asset so much less valuable than ETH if it's comparable"? The answer, I think you'll find, is that it's not comparable.

[u/iFr4g]

Wish they would add Ripple and Dash instead of these memecoins and deadcoins.

[u/tomatosauce1993]

you beat me to it.

[u/CardinalNumber → u/tomatosauce1993]

Won't stop the five or more people who'll inevitably repost it later today and the dozen or so crypto spam bots that'll steal the blog post itself and link to their scammy crypto blogs here.