Coinbase is a popular option for buying bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
Todd Haselton | CNBC
Watch out for social media, funding apps are becoming a more popular form of entertainment on people’s phones.
Robinhood and Coinbase trading platforms took the top two spots in the Apple App Store this week, while Americans turned their attention to the stock and cryptocurrency markets.
Robinhood ticked no. 1st place on Friday, followed by the cryptographic trading platform Coinbase, according to data from Sensor Tower. TikTok was the third. The rise in popularity comes when Coinbase debuted on the Nasdaq on Wednesday, and bitcoin surpassed $ 64,000 for the first time.
The growing popularity highlights a boom in retail during the pandemic and the “meme stock” culture around names like GameStop. The video game retailer became a household name in January after a group of Reddit traders triggered a brief historical pressure.
Usually, social networks and entertainment options, such as TikTok, Reddit and Instagram, are the top applications. Rankings reflect the download momentum of a particular application, not necessarily the total number of cumulative downloads.
It’s not the first time Robinhood has taken first place. In January, at the height of the GameStop controversy, the brokerage firm was the most popular application in Apple and Google app stores. Webull, another trading application, was second. Coinbase, Cash’s Square and Fidelity also reached the top 10.
Robinhood, which closed the purchase of certain shares during the GameStop frenzy, has made a comeback on social media, and its CEO was later called to testify before Congress. But Robinhood added about 3 million more customers in January alone, according to JMP Securities estimates.
Venture capital investors follow the commitment and download the numbers closely. Until recently, these values were mainly used to measure the success of social applications. Robinhood investors now use similar values. He managed to raise $ 3 billion in capital in a few days in January, which investors said CNBC said was due to its dramatic growth as it faces a public relations and regulatory crisis.
Charles Schwab said on Thursday that it added a record 3.2 million new customers in the first quarter – more new accounts than in all of 2020. CEO Walt Bettinger credited “increased market attention to certain names through through social networks ”as a factor that“ significantly strengthened the trading activity. “
– CNBC’s Steve Kovach contributed to the reporting.