Robinhood’s Default Crypto Routing Adds Nearly 2% Cost to Bitcoin Trades

Robinhood’s default crypto order routing, known as market maker routing, adds a spread of close to 2% when buying and selling Bitcoin (BTC). The cost is embedded in the quoted price rather than shown as a separate fee.

How the 2% Spread Is Generated

The spread represents the difference between the bid and ask prices. Robinhood routes orders to an external trading firm and receives $0.95 for every $100 of volume. This payment is reflected in the higher ask price for buyers and the lower bid price for sellers, resulting in roughly a 1% cost on each side of a trade.

Trader Observation

Delphi Digital co‑founder Tommy Shaughnessy posted a screenshot showing a bid of $75,361.72 and an ask of $76,787.76, a gap of 1.87%, and described it as “criminal” for such a large asset.

Robinhood’s Alternative Routing

Robinhood’s senior vice president of crypto, Johann Kerbrat, highlighted a second routing option called Smart Exchange Routing. This method charges a disclosed fee ranging from 0% to 0.95%, decreasing with higher 30‑day trading volume.

Additional Platform Details

• Withdrawals to external wallets do not require selling the crypto first.
• Robinhood does not allow agents to transfer, stake, or lend crypto.
• Two Robinhood engineers faced insider‑trading charges related to Hyperliquid.