8 hours ago
The Florida Attorney General said determination is grounds that crypto trading connected Robinhood is really much costly owed to its outgo for bid travel (PFOF) model.
Jul 11, 2025, 2:56 p.m.
Robinhood Crypto is nether probe successful Florida for allegedly falsely advertizing its level arsenic the slightest costly mode to bargain crypto.
In a Thursday property statement, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said his bureau has grounds to suggest that crypto traders really wage more, connected average, erstwhile utilizing Robinhood than erstwhile utilizing competing platforms.
“Crypto is simply a captious constituent of Florida’s fiscal future, and President [Donald] Trump’s efforts to beforehand the crypto marketplace volition marque America stronger and wealthier. When consumers bargain and merchantability crypto assets, they merit transparency successful their transactions,” Uthmeier said. “Robinhood has agelong claimed to beryllium the champion bargain, but we judge those representations were deceptive.”
At the bosom of Uthmeier’s allegation is Robinhood’s outgo for bid travel (PFOF) concern model. PFOF allows Robinhood to connection commission-free trading by alternatively generating gross from routing its lawsuit trades done marketplace makers successful speech for a chopped of the profits. Critics of the signifier — which Robinhood besides uses for banal trading — person complained that PFOF presents an inherent struggle of interest, perchance incentivizing the institution to way customers’ trades done the marketplace shaper offering the astir commission, not the 1 with the champion terms for customers.
In 2020, Robinhood paid $65 cardinal to settee a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) enforcement enactment alleging that the institution misrepresented the prime of its executions of lawsuit trades. Robinhood did not admit oregon contradict the SEC’s findings. Under erstwhile Chair Gary Gensler, the SEC considered banning PFOF but yet did not. PFOF is banned successful the United Kingdom and volition beryllium banned successful the European Union opening adjacent year.
Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev has agelong defended the practice, telling CNBC successful 2023 that PFOF was “inherently present to stay.”
“Our disclosures are best-in-class — We disclose pricing accusation to customers during the lifecycle of a commercialized that intelligibly outlines the dispersed oregon the fees associated with the transaction and the gross Robinhood receives. We are arrogant to beryllium a spot wherever customers tin commercialized crypto astatine the lowest outgo connected average,” said Robinhood Markets General Counsel Lucas Moskowitz successful an emailed statement.
Uthmeier’s subpoena is seeking a slew of accusation from Robinhood, including documentation of however the level determines pricing for transaction rebates oregon PFOF practices with marketplace makers, documents containing comparative terms analyses of different crypto exchanges, and documents relating to the merchantability oregon entree of users’ crypto trading data.
Robinhood has until the extremity of the period to respond to the Uthmeier’s subpoena.
Cheyenne Ligon
On the quality squad astatine CoinDesk, Cheyenne focuses connected crypto regularisation and crime. Cheyenne is primitively from Houston, Texas. She studied governmental subject astatine Tulane University successful Louisiana. In December 2021, she graduated from CUNY's Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, wherever she focused connected concern and economics reporting. She has nary important crypto holdings.
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