Robinhood goes bust just as Dogecoin goes boom
Trading app Robinhood, which famously went down during the peak of the market frenzy last March, suffered another outage Tuesday. Only this time, it wasn’t stocks that were stuck in neutral, it was crypto.
The outage, lasting around one hour, took place as Dogecoin explored new record highs and Ethereum continued to gain ground. The individual investors who make up a sizable percentage of Robinhood’s customer base were outraged.
And since so many were upset about losing the chance to make money on a digital currency that’s centered around a meme, they voiced their frustration using other memes.
Robinhood anytime they see DOGE hitting an all time high. #DogecoinGoingUp pic.twitter.com/WY4TnZgOed
— #DogecoinGoingUp ?? (@was9pride) May 4, 2021
Robinhood every time #dogecoin goes up pic.twitter.com/NCix9LSPxU
— Razor Ramone (@kingdaved) May 4, 2021
Robinhood employees every time #dogecoin has a spike pic.twitter.com/fFlieSGCXw
— Jason Dill (@TRICHERATOPS_) May 4, 2021
Others were more direct with their criticisms, noting that the crypto’s rise stopped right about the same time Robinhood went down. And some saw the outage as an opportunity to reaffirm their commitment to their investment.
Dogecoin hits .60¢ and Robinhood is suddenly having issues and it drops almost .05¢…yeah that’s not suspicious at all pic.twitter.com/nkifEqpEzH
— bean sprout ? (@fatassjoint) May 4, 2021
#robinhood can experience all the “issues” they want. We’re holding anyway ? #dogecoin pic.twitter.com/sj6jNpeGPZ
— Amit Patel (@apatel2210) May 4, 2021
This is how #Robinhood does business. What a bunch of thieves! pic.twitter.com/K7cAaKL7dT
— GSG (@gsg_tick) May 4, 2021
Doge went too hard early this morning, so naturally Robinhood does Robinhood things pic.twitter.com/0jyoVkw4Na
— AyKop (@AyKopOfficial) May 4, 2021
And once again @RobinhoodApp coming in to ruin the people’s momentum #doge #dogecoin pic.twitter.com/r7nmHYMrVf
— Matt (@MattM3RCY) May 4, 2021
At 11:15 a.m. ET, Robinhood said that crypto trading had been restored and apologized, adding that it would “continue to monitor the situation closely.”
Traders hoping to take advantage of the Dogecoin run lost their chance at the highest of the highs, though. After being up 49% at one point Tuesday, the crypto’s gains slipped to 30% at noon ET.
Last March, Robinhood was down for the better part of two days as the market saw tremendous gains. (The value of all companies on the S&P 500 jumped by $1.1 trillion dollars during the outage.) At the time, the company blamed “unprecedented load” for the problems. Customers were outraged at not being able to take advantage of the trading opportunities, and did not find the company’s offer of billing credits and other options as a make-good.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com