What a difference makes a changing regulatory environment.
About nine months after the proposal that a new copying platform could only work because it threw “under the radar” of regulators, Robinhood announced its own entrance to the “Robinhood Social”, a new feature that will allow users to follow them.
The movement represents an impressive person for electronic brokerage, which has historically cautious about the features that could attract regulatory control. The company erased its celebration confetti Characteristic in front of 2021 IPO after regulatory authorities raised concerns about gamifying trading, making the hug of trading copies, another potentially gamified feature, even more remarkable.
This compassion was in full appearance in December, when in a Conversation with this editor Regarding the copy trading platform, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev suggested that such platforms could work mainly because of their smaller size, suggesting that “copying could be more interesting for regulatory principles” of size ”.
Now, RobinHood bets that the regulatory landscape has changed enough to safely enter the copy market.
The time is particularly remarkable, given the intense criticism of RobinHood he faced earlier this year by the 23 -year -old founder of Dub Steven Wang, who has placed his platform as a more educational alternative to traditional trading applications.
‘I have a lot of respect for what [CEO] Vlad [Tenev] He has done to make free negotiation, “Wang told me in February.” But at the end of the day, making it extremely easy to trade without the guidance of experts, without training, it’s really only gambling for the wider population. “
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Wang has consistently argued that the DUB-which includes risk ratings, odds tailored to risk, and portfolio stability measurements-representatives is a safer alternative to platforms such as Robinhood. In his conversation with TechCrunch, Wang also criticizes RobinHood’s decision to offer meme coins such as Trump, saying that the motivations “are aligned among these large platforms that are public companies that now have to make money”.
Tuesday’s news, announced at RobinHood’s corporate event Earlier in the day, it brought to mind the possibility that Robinhood had, in fact, acquired a four -year Dub, which was officially released just last year and so far increased $ 47 million in funding by investors. But he arrived for comments, a RobinHood spokesman replied by email, “No, this is not an acquisition, we are building our own platform on Robinhood.” A request for comments from Wang was not returned by the press time.
Robinhood version for Copy Trading differs significantly from platforms such as DUB and established players such as Etoro, who have offered copies for US users for years Copying feature. While ETORO allows automatic copying of real -time other traders’ portfolios (with US users limited to copying only other US traders due to regulations), DUB allows users to automatically copy entire portfolios for a monthly $ 10 subscription and RobinHood will require them from usual can help address regulatory concerns.
The platform, which will begin early next year, will include verified traders and will display the activities of famous investors and members of Congress. Unlike the informal transaction of copies that occurs in social media, RobinHood will require identity verification and proof of real portfolio positions. The plan, according to the company, is to first invite 10,000 RobinHood Social users to test the service before launching it wider.
The launch comes at a time when the regulatory landscape is rapidly evolving. The encryption companies have been largely examined under the management of Biden, while many encryption companies have become public commercial companies in recent months, their path has been reduced by Trump’s cryptographic stance. Meanwhile, the copy transaction – a long common in Europe, but to a large extent in the US – can eventually win.
Seeing through this lens, Robinhood’s entry into Copy Trading represents more than another launch feature. It could signal the opening of floodgates for a wave of new platforms. If RobinHood can successfully negotiate the legal landscape that has long been a limited US copy transaction, other Fintech components seems likely to follow the example. Etoro’s Successful May iPowhich raised $ 310 million and saw that shares are increasing 29% in their debut, has already demonstrated a strong appetite for investors for copy platforms.
Whether this potential wave is good news or bad for retail investors – or will mostly serve to boost Fintech’s valuations – is an open question. For now, Robinhood shareholders are probably the clearest winners.
