“Just before the close, things got downright surreal when in a blog post the broker – which should probably change its name from Robinhood to Suit – made a shocking announcement: going forward, customers will be subject to maximum aggregate limits in 51 securities of which 14 are capped at position limits of just 5 shares, while allowing total holdings in 36 securities to be just one share!
In other words, as of this moment, no client is allowed to one more than 1 share in names like GME, AMC, AG, BBBY, BYND, WKHS and many others. Ie. virtually nobody can buy any new securities.
The most likely reason is that between DTC, clearinghouses and other regulatory entities, Robinhood was found to be in another capital deficiency position – even with the billions raised overnight – and it is being forced to delever. We only hope that the billions in funds held in custody for clients is segregated should the company collapse.”
See Also: Robinhood Limits Cryptocurrency Trading Citing ‘Extraordinary Market Conditions’
See Also: Could #WallStreetBets Be The Early Innings Of A Financial Arab Spring?
“Google removed as many as 120,000 negative reviews of Robinhood, pushing the app’s rating from one star to about four stars. The company reportedly said that Google’s policies explicitly prohibit reviews aiming to manipulate an app’s rating.”
“The U.S. securities watchdog is looking into the affair of Robinhood and the Redditors.
The Commission will closely review actions taken by regulated entities that may disadvantage investors or otherwise unduly inhibit their ability to trade certain securities.
Robinhood, already the subject of enormous backlash from its users, is clearly in the sights of this announcement, as it is the “regulated entity” i.e. broker-dealer at the heart of the news. The firm’s shutting off of sales but not buys provoked mass ire from investors and casual observers.”
“FTX has listed a WallStreetBets (WSB) index quarterly futures contract in a bid to capitalize on the retail trading fervor that exploded in recent days.
The basket of markets that make up the contract include stocks being targeted by the Reddit trading group – Nokia (NOK), BlackBerry (BB), AMC Entertainment (AMC), GameStop (GME), iShares Silver Trust (SLV) – as well as the dogecoin (DOGE) cryptocurrency and FTX’s native token FTT.
WSB-related stocks have been our most requested products ever.”
“Canadian investment firm Ninepoint Partners completed the C$230 million (US$180 million) initial public offering of its cryptocurrency fund which is now fully invested.
The bitcoin fund is available in both U.S. dollars and Canadian dollars and is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbols “BITC.U” and “BITC.UN.” According to Ninepoint, the fund will have the lowest management fee structure for a listed bitcoin vehicle in Canada.”
See Also: Crypto Lender BlockFi Registers Bitcoin Trust With SEC
“The Indian Parliament will consider a government-introduced bill that would ban private cryptocurrencies in its upcoming budget session. Given the ruling party controls both houses of Parliament, the chances of the bill’s passage are considered good.
The Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill, 2021, seeks to prohibit all cryptocurrencies in India and provide a framework for creating an official digital currency to be issued by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
If the bill is approved, India would become the only major Asian economy to ban private cryptocurrencies rather than regulate.“
“The shorts were liquidated after Elon Musk added “Bitcoin” to his Twitter bio and prices rose by over 15%.
That one word addition caused the price of bitcoin to spike to a 10-day high of $38,020 and sparked $387 million worth of short liquidations on major exchanges including Binance, Bitfinex, BitMEX, ByBit, Deribit, FTX, HuobiDM and OKEx.”
See Also: Reddit co-founder hoists the Bitcoin flag on Twitter amid price surge
“RevPop today launched its test network—a blockchain aimed at providing fertile soil for competing social networks that protect data. Developers can use the Matic Network to create an entire ecosystem of competing social networks atop the RevPop blockchain. If one disappoints, users can port their data to another.
The idea that we should be stuck with the Facebook approach on the one hand and the Twitter approach on the other and a few other things around the fringes is just absurd.”
“Following its merger into the Yearn ecosystem, SushiSwap has been making significant inroads into the market share of leading decentralized exchange Uniswap.
SushiSwap is evolving from being an exchange to include lending, franchised liquidity pools, cross-chain integrations and a launchpad. Under #Yearn ‘s ecosystem, it’ll benefit from new network effects.”
“Right now, blockchains communicate via tacked-on solutions (state channels, sidechains, swaps, bridges and so on). With the Stargate update to Cosmos on Feb. 18, the tools for native blockchain interoperability will be live on mainnet.
For us this will enable seamless and simple integrations with any Cosmos-based decentralized application.
There have been a lot of standalone bridges between blockchains built so far, but Stargate could mark a new era in composability, where we see one big system that lets lots of different chains trade value and build on each other’s strengths.”
See Also: New project uses rollups to build Linux-based decentralized computer
“SBI Holdings has reportedly partnered with Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (SMFG) to launch a digital stock exchange slated for spring 2022.
SBI and SMFG are expected to launch the platform in Osaka to compete against the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE). The exchange is expected to be Japan’s first such stock exchange, allowing investors to trade digital securities using blockchain technology.”
The Disrupt 