‘Robinhoodwinked’
App traders apoplectic over Dogecoin-rally outage
Robinhood traders slammed the investing app afteritscryptocurrencyplatformsufferedamajoroutage right in the middle of Dogecoin’s record-setting rally.
Robinhood said its cryptotrading service started going haywire by 10 p.m. Thursday — just as the price of the meme-inspired currency started spiking.
The disruption enraged Robinhood users, who accused the startup on social mediaofintentionallyblocking them from cashing in on the Dogecoin surge that’s seen the cult coin’s price quadruple over five days.
“How convenient. Robinhood always has ‘issues’ when their customers are making money,” one person said Thursday on Twitter, where Robinhood was a trending topic early Friday.
“I swear to god, if Robinhood does anything to mess with my #doge profit, they are getting a one way trip to the sun,” another irritated trader wrote.
The outage came as Dogecoin’s price rallied to nearly 30 cents late Thursday, more than double where it traded that afternoon, according
to CoinDesk.
The bounce came after the crypto-focused news outlet reported on meat stick brand Slim Jim’s effort to increase its Twitter following by engaging with Dogecoin posts.
The digital currency — which started as a joke — jumped further Friday morning to a new all-time high near 33 cents before paring the gain to trade at 30.9 cents as of 8:19 a.m., putting it up more than 5,700 percent for the year, CoinDesk data show.
Robinhood said it had “fully restored” its crypto trading functions by 11:46 p.m. Thursday, blaming the problems on high demand for its cryp to currency platform.
The cry pt os er vice also suffered from“de graded performance” Friday morning thanks to an in flux of activity, according to Robinhood’s status dashboard. Robin hood said it had fixed the issues for most customers by about 11 a.m. Easterntime.
The Silicon Valley company also flatly denied allegations that it had placed restrictions on Dogecoin trading Thursday, as it did to socalled meme stocks such as GameStop and AMC Entertainment in late January.
“Unprecedented demand for Robinhood crypto services created temporary issues with crypto trading,” a Robinhood spokesperson told The Post Friday. “That’s it, plain and simple.”