Sep 22, 2017

Robinhood stock app sends 'cease and desist' to crypto upstart

Actor Jamie Foxx this week tweeted his support support of an initial coin offering for Cobinhood, which says it is launching a zero-fee trading exchange and cryptocurrency service platform. But the startup — which declined to say if Foxx was compensated, when asked by Axios — could be facing a big problem.

Robinhood, a zero-fee stock trading exchange recently valued at $1.3 billion by venture capitalists like Google Ventures, is upset about what it feels is misappropriation by the upstart (including a very similar color scheme).

Per a company statement:

"Robinhood has no affiliation with Cobinhood, which is confusingly similar in name and branding. In order to protect our brand, Robinhood sent a cease and desist letter requesting that Cobinhood cease its use of the Cobinhood name and branding."

Cobinhood's reply so far: "Cobinhood is not associated with Robinhood in any way, but are as legitimate as them."

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