Sam Bankman-Fried Acquires a $650 Million Stake in Robinhood
Bankman-Fried bought $648 million in Robinhood shares at an average price of $11.52, according to a securities filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday. The purchases, according to Bankman-Fried, started in mid-March and continued until Wednesday.
Bankman-Fried stated in the securities filing that he had "no intention of taking any action toward changing or influencing the control of [Robinhood]" and that he was merely looking for an "attractive investment."
Bankman-fried is the only director and majority owner of Emergent Fidelity Technologies Ltd, an Antiguan company that handled the deal.
After its stock price hit a new all-time low of $7.73 on March 12, just one day after the brokerage firm reported that its crypto transaction income had fallen 39 percent year-over-year, the statement appears to have brought some short-term solace to Robinhood investors (YOY). As revenue from stock-related trading has plummeted, Robinhood has made considerable inroads into the cryptocurrency industry. Robinhood now allows customers to trade bitcoin, putting it in direct rivalry with Coinbase and Gemini, two other US-based cryptocurrency exchanges.