By
Steve Muchoki
April 19th, 2024
The company’s COO revealed that the number of women using Robinhood year-on-year had increased by 369%
Stock and crypto trading app Robinhood has enabled more women to trade crypto says Chief Operating Officer Gretchen Howard. The COO added that it was Robinhood’s goal to increase its number of female users, more specifically, women investing in crypto.
Increased Participation of Women in Crypto
In a Business Insider article published on Wednesday, Howard revealed that the number of women using Robinhood year-on-year had increased by 369%. In March the platform reported a 7 times increase in the number of active female users trading in cryptocurrencies since 2020. The figure now stands at 40% of all women using the app.
“To me it feels like, wow, we’ve enabled these women to trade crypto,” said Howard. “[Crypto is] very new, especially to people getting into investing for the first time. And it’s also stereotyped as a male-dominated space.”
Howard left venture capital firm CapitalG to join Robinhood in January 2019 as Vice President of Operations. In June of that year, she was elevated to COO. Earlier this year she said that she hopes to see a substantial increase in the number of women using the platform. At around that time, about 30% of active users were women. The app had over 30 million users as of June, with 18 million having funded accounts.
A survey by Gemini published in April showed that for the first time, more women than men were interested in using crypto as a form of investment. A World Economic Forum report, however, revealed that women employed in the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry were outnumbered by men. BDC Consulting inferred that having more women as speakers at crypto events and putting the media’s spotlight on women in the industry could encourage more female participation.
Robinhood’s Continued Regulatory Scrutiny and Potential IPO Snub
Robinhood is purportedly still under regulator scrutiny following its WallStreetBets saga. On June 30 the company was fined $70M by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority for allegedly causing “widespread and significant harm” to customers. The next day, Robinhood filed a Form S-1 registration statement for an Initial Public Offering (IPO) with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The company, with the proposed ‘HOOD’ ticker, is reportedly hoping to raise $100M on the Nasdaq.
Meanwhile, there have been calls on social media to shun the IPO claiming that Robinhood mishandled the uproar that followed the GameStop saga citing glitches and trading restrictions.
One Redditor said that “Robinhood has not even been able to keep their app working properly, has not been able to fill orders promptly, has consistently provided incorrect info to users about their trades.”