Buying and selling crypto
When investing or trading crypto in your Robinhood account, we support the following order types:
To help combat dramatic price moves, we adjust market orders to limit orders collared up to 1% for buy orders, and 5% for sell orders. This means that your order won’t execute if the price of the crypto moves more than 5% lower than its price at the time you placed a market sell order, or more than 1% higher than its price when you placed a market buy order. Market orders that don't execute after 2 minutes may be automatically canceled.
A limit order is an order placed to buy or sell a specified amount at a specified price or better.
Limit orders (placed in USD):
Limit orders (placed in fractional amounts):
Limit orders aren’t guaranteed to execute. Your limit buy order will only execute when the crypto’s ask price meets or falls below your limit price. Your limit sell order will only execute if the crypto’s bid price meets or exceeds your limit price. For more details, see Why do the crypto mark price and order price differ?
You can switch between placing trades in fractional amounts of the crypto and placing trades in dollar amounts by selecting Amount in USD or the selected crypto on the order screen.
A stop order is an order to buy or sell crypto once it reaches a specific price, known as the stop price.
When a coin reaches your set stop price, the stop order becomes a crypto market order and is executed at the best ask or bid price currently available, with up to a 1% collar for buy orders or a 5% collar for sell orders.
Stop orders are used to trigger a purchase should the coin price reach or go above the stop price. Or trigger a sell should the bid price reach or drop below the stop price.
The following examples are for illustrative purposes only. In general, understanding order types can help you manage risk and execution speed. However, you can never eliminate market and trading risks entirely. It’s usually best to choose an order type based on your trading goals and objectives.
With a buy stop order, you can set a stop price above the current coin ask price. If the coin rises to your stop price, your buy stop order becomes a buy market order, with up to a 1% collar.
Let’s say, XYZ crypto is currently trading at $6 per coin. You want to wait to purchase XYZ until it reaches an ask price of $8 because you think it’ll rise much higher, but only after it reaches $8, so you set your stop price to $8.
With a sell stop order, you can set a stop price below the current coin bid price. If the coin falls to your stop price, your sell stop order becomes a sell market order with up to a 5% collar.
Let’s say you purchased XYZ crypto for $10 a few months ago. It’s currently trading at $20 per coin ($10 unrealized profit). Your goal is to make at least $5 per coin if the price were to drop. So you create a sell stop order at a bid price of $16.50. If XYZ reverses itself and starts to drop below the stop price of $16.50 it becomes a sell market order.
A stop limit order combines the features of a stop order and a limit order. When a coin hits a stop price that you set, it triggers a limit order. Then, the limit order is executed at your limit price or better. Investors often use stop limit orders in an attempt to limit a loss or protect a profit, in case the coin moves in the wrong direction.
Keep in mind, short-term market fluctuations might prevent your order from being executed.
Also, once your stop order becomes a limit order, there must be a buyer and seller on both sides of the trade for the limit order to execute. If the market doesn’t have enough crypto available at your limit price, it might take multiple trades to fill the entire order, or the order may not be filled at all.
With a buy stop limit order, you can set a stop price above the current coin price. If the crypto rises to your stop price, it triggers a buy limit order. Crypto will only be purchased at your limit price or lower.
XYZ is currently trading at $5 per coin. You want to wait to purchase XYZ because you think it’ll fall to a lower price. You also think that if XYZ reaches $8 it may go higher. To help minimize your potential costs, you set a stop price at $8. You also don’t want to pay more than $8.05 for XYZ, so you set a limit price at $8.05.
With a sell stop limit order, you can set a stop price below the current coin price. If the coin falls to your stop price, it triggers a sell limit order. Crypto will only be sold at your limit price or higher.
XYZ is currently trading at $10 per coin. You want to wait to sell XYZ because you think it’ll rise to a higher price. To help protect yourself in case XYZ reverses itself and begins falling, you set a stop price at $8. You also don’t want to receive less than $7.95 per XYZ, so you set a limit price at $7.95.
You don’t have to buy full coins on Robinhood. You can place an order to buy or sell crypto at fractional amounts.
The minimum order size for market marker routing is $0.01 and the minimum order size for smart exchange routing is $0.03.
Crypto dust refers to small amounts of crypto that fall below the minimum trade limit. These amounts are often too small to be sold because they don’t meet the required minimum for a marketable order.
Position limits refer to the maximum amount of a crypto that you can buy and hold using Robinhood Crypto. You can find the position limits for crypto below. Please note, position limits are subject to change at Robinhood Crypto’s discretion.
You can buy and hold up to the cost basis limit worth of a specific crypto. Note that the value of your crypto on Robinhood may exceed your position limits based on market fluctuations affecting crypto prices.
You can see the estimated buy or sell price for a crypto in the app:
You can also view the estimated buy or sell price for a crypto on web classic in the order panel.
The difference between the estimated buy and sell price is called the spread. The size of the spread is a measure of the liquidity of the market, or how quickly and easily you can convert between cash and this crypto. Typically, if more people are trading a crypto, it'll be easier to find someone willing to trade with you. This is why you may see smaller spreads for better known crypto like Bitcoin, and larger spreads for lesser known crypto.
You can trade crypto 24/7 with your Robinhood Crypto account, with some exceptions like scheduled maintenance.
We periodically schedule maintenance windows that can occur at different times, and might affect the timing of the trade.
Crypto isn’t subject to pattern day trading regulations, because it isn’t regulated by FINRA or the SEC like stocks and options.
Keep in mind that a crypto trade may put you below the minimum balance required to avoid pattern day trade restrictions in your investing account. Review Pattern day trading for more information.
Your crypto assets aren’t part of your Robinhood Financial account. Your investing account is with Robinhood Financial LLC and allows trading of stocks, ETFs and options, while cryptocurrency trading is done through your account with Robinhood Crypto, LLC.
Robinhood Crypto is licensed to engage in virtual currency business activity by the New York State Department of Financial Services, as well as a number of other state money service business regulators. Robinhood Crypto is not a member of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) or the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC).
Crypto aren't stocks and your crypto investments aren’t FDIC insured or SIPC protected. Robinhood Financial, LLC and Robinhood Crypto, LLC are wholly-owned subsidiaries of Robinhood Markets, Inc.
For these reasons, you can trade crypto on Robinhood with a Cash, Instant, or Gold account.
If your Robinhood Financial account is restricted for any reason, your Robinhood Crypto account may also be restricted. You won't be able to trade crypto until the restriction on your Robinhood Financial account is lifted.
Your crypto assets are held in your Robinhood Crypto account, not your Robinhood Financial account, so they’re treated as non-marginable, with a maintenance requirement of 100%. This means your crypto needs to be backed entirely by cash, and can’t serve as collateral for equities positions.
You’ll receive the proceeds from your sales to purchase stocks, options, or other crypto immediately. However, the ACH settlement period still applies when you withdraw the funds from your Robinhood Crypto account to your bank account. This means you won’t be able to withdraw the proceeds from your sales for 5 business days.
Funds from stock, ETF, and options sales become available for buying crypto within 3 business days. However, limited cash deposits and all proceeds from crypto sales are available to instant accounts immediately.
We calculate cost basis (original value or purchase price) on a First-In-First-Out (FIFO) basis. This means we’ll sell your crypto in the order you bought them.
When you transfer crypto into your Robinhood account from an external source, we don’t have access to the cost basis or date acquired. As a result, we estimate your gain or loss by using a cost basis of $0 and treat the date received into your Robinhood Crypto account as the date acquired.
In the app, you can choose between smart exchange routing or market maker routing for certain crypto.
On web classic, your order will only be routed using market maker routing. On Robinhood Legend, your order will only be routed using smart exchange routing.