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BlockFi sues FTX’s Bankman-Fried over shares in Robinhood

BlockFi is demanding Bankman-Fried’s investment company turn over its shares in Robinhood as collateral it agreed to pay as part of a pledge agreement.

Newly-bankrupt crypto lending platform BlockFi has filed a lawsuit against Sam Bankman-Fried’s holding company Emergent Fidelity Technologies seeking his shares in Robinhood that were pledged as collateral earlier in November.

The suit was filed on Nov. 28 in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey just hours after BlockFi filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the same court.

As per the filing, BlockFi is demanding Emergent turnover collateral as part of a Nov. 9 pledge agreement that saw Emergent agree to a payment schedule with BlockFi that it has allegedly failed to pay.

BlockFi names the collateral as “including certain shares of common stock.”

In May, Bankman-Fried acquired a 7.6% stake in the online brokerage firm Robinhood, buying a total of $648 million in Robinhood shares through his Emergent investment company.

Related: FTX collapse drives curiosity around Sam Bankman-Fried, Google data shows

BlockFi is one of the latest firms to file for bankruptcy as a result of the collapse of FTX crypto exchange.

The crypto firm initially previously denied that a majority of its assets were held on FTX earlier in the month, but also acknowledged “significant exposure” to FTX.

In its bankruptcy filing, BlockFi stated that it has assets between $1 billion and $10 billion with liabilities in the same range, along with over 100,000 creditors.

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Binance Explores Acquisition of Brazilian Securities Brokerage Firm

Binance Explores Acquisition of Brazilian Securities Brokerage FirmLeading cryptocurrency exchange Binance is showing its intention of expanding its activities to Brazil. The company announced that it has signed a memorandum of understanding with a regulated securities brokerage firm in Brazil, with the intention of acquiring it. The company, called Sim;paul Investimentos, offers different investment options to its customers, including various funds and […]

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Robinhood share price down 70% from August high

Market analysts are nonplussed by HOOD stock price as long as it continues to ramp up its presence in the cryptocurrency trading space.

As Robinhood struggles with its declining share price, could ramping up its cryptocurrency offerings help boost the company’s outlook?

Robinhood is a financial services company that also acts as a retail trading platform for ordinary users. It's known for meme stocks and currently offers seven cryptocurrencies for trading.

Since Aug. 4, Robinhood (HOOD) has fallen nearly 70% from its ATH of $70.39 to $25.94, and it’s been below the $38 IPO price for weeks. Several factors are contributing to the fall, such as a drop in crypto and meme stocks day trading as the pandemic era comes to an end and people return to their offices to work.

Robinhood enjoyed big gains in Q2 2021 when Dogecoin (DOGE) trading accounted for 41% of Robinhood’s total revenue, and 62% of the $233 million generated by cryptocurrency trading.

However, cryptocurrency trading fell 79% in Q3 and only accounted for 19% of its total revenue.

Chris MacDonald, a contributor to TipRanks, still believes that cryptocurrency iks the key to Robinhood’s long term success.

“Robinhood appears to continue to ramp up its efforts to become the most-utilized exchange out there. Those who think crypto is real and here for the long haul may want to take a close look at this company right now.”

There is also a big demand for Robinhood to launch its wallet feature, which currently has over 1.6 million users on the waitlist. That’s about 7% of its total user base as of the end of Q3 2021. While some are planning to trade more with the wallet others may simply want to withdraw their existing tokens from Robinhood’s platform.

The brokerage has not said anything definitive about listing Shiba Inu (SHIB). There's a big push on from the community including a petition to list SHIB on Robinhood that currently has 541,000 signatures. Competitor Kraken this week launched SHIB trading which was followed by a 30% increase in the price. Such price action may help convince Robinhood of the merits of listing the memecoin given the potential to repeat the growth it experienced from the DOGE trading frenzy in Q2.

Related: Robinhood exec says proposal for a single digital asset regulator is stupid

Despite the current price doldrums Wall Street appears to view HOOD favorably for now. Nasdaq has indicated an average price target of $45 from 13 analysts, which represents 73.3% upside potential.

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