June 5, 2021
$65 million is a drop in the bucket compared to what Robinhood earned from illegal PfOF activity. A small fine accomplishes nothing and only signals to other institutions that criminality is still profitable. Customers not only lost money because of Robinhoods criminal activity, they also lost the ability to participate in a free and fair market. Allowing clients to front-run retail investors for profit should be considered severe enough of a violation to dissolve Robinhood and allow better companies to fill the need in the market. If Robinhood is not dissolved, they should at least pay a fine equivalent to the money they made from illegal PfOF activity, which was $91 million in Q1 2020 and $331 million in Q1 2021.