Bitcoin Forum

I first got into bitcoin back in May. A friend helped me set up a Robinhood account and all this time have been buying bitcoin through there. Thanks to twitter I recently found out that I don't actually own my bitcoin keys and this whole time I thought I did. Now I'm panicking. How do I take ownership of them? It says on the Robinhood website they are thinking about  giving people their own keys but who knows when that'll actually happen if at all. What should I do?

you need to take a decentralized wallet: ex trust wallet in order to have your public key and private key.

there is no guarantee they'll ever allow crypto withdrawals. it's been almost 3 years already---i wouldn't count on it.

if you want your keys, you need to liquidate your positions on robinhood, withdraw the fiat to your bank account, then use it to buy real bitcoins on an exchange (kraken, coinbase, etc) or p2p marketplace (localbitcoins, localcryptos). then withdraw the coins to a wallet you control.

There is no need to panic. First, Robinhood is not a scam. It is SEC-registered and even has insurance. Second, you have the option to get out of there. You didn't mention that your Robinhood account is locked or frozen so I assume everything's doing pretty well except that you realized that you cannot truly own Bitcoin there.

So you may get out of there and buy your Bitcoin from somewhere else such as the ones mentioned above this post and then keep them somewhere where you and you alone own and control the private keys. I recommend a hardware wallet. Learn more about Trezor or Ledger.

Do you still remember your account details in Robinhood? Those funds are important, you should still able to login in your account.
I agree with figmentofmyass, that even you may not able to withdraw a real Bitcoin there atleast if you liquidate your account to fiat, you will still able to receive some profits and you can use those to buy actual Bitcoin.
Alternative wallet for your Bitcoin is a hardware wallet, go try to explore some, just like Trezor and Ledger hardware wallets.

Since they don't allow withdrawals yet, your only choice is either:

1. Let your current bitcoin just sit on Robinhood(while waiting for them to allow withdrawals) and just start buying "real" bitcoin on exchanges that let you withdraw

2. Just sell every bitcoin you have on Robinhood and use that money to re-buy on exchanges

Ultimately, it's really great that you got interested in having self-custody over your funds. But just a word of warning, you can lose everything if you don't know what you're doing. So before going this recommended path, make sure to educate yourself first. :)

• https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1631151.0
• https://cryptosec.info/wallets/

+1

Keep in mind, if you go with option two, assess your risks beforehand. The money could take a few days to hit your bank account after you sell your BTC on Robinhood, and BTC could be well above (or below) the price that you sold at on Robinhood.

If it's a small amount I would keep it on Robinhood and wait till they allow withdrawals. However if it's a large amount of BTC then I would sell on Robinhood and buy someplace else like Kraken or Coinbase that allows BTC withdrawals.

Since you are frightened, the risks coming may be urgent, wait until the price is fixed, and then you can withdraw your coins from them (if they allow withdrawal) or convert them into dollars and return to the old value.
The price is now volatile and you may lose a few money if you want to withdraw your coins and invest again.

Withdraw it send it to your own wallet which you have total control,
Buy a hardware wallet or create a paper wallet it depends on which you prefer but since you are a newbie and wants a total control I suggest to buy your own hardware wallet.
They are the safest and good for a long term hold for my opinion.

I understand your situation and I know that it is very difficult situation because all these years you thought you have the ownership in your mined bitcoin yet because of the site that you're into, you realize that they won't allow to withdraw. But I think you may do some two way withdrawal. Like, you will cash it in order wallet, online wallets that also teustee and you may now wihthdraw it or exchange it to become a dollar in able to withdraw. I think it has a lot of different ways to fix that and you're the one who have the control to the used email I assume because you sign up for them. Right?

your friend is helpful but he also did make a mistake because of so many exchanges and wallets out there that allows you buy and sell btc he pick the one that doesnt allows you to withdraw or sell your btc but you can only do buy btc or put btc on there  .
what the heck was that ? are they trying to copy paypal where btc  users cant also withdraw their btc's but i think you can still sell btc inside paypal  .
 they arent totally bad as this one .  your only hope is if this robinhood  will give option to give private keys . just wait pray and dont panic , dont buy more btc inside them .

Close your trading position in that website, and send the bitcoin into the other wallets. You can use a hardware wallet, a desktop wallet, or even a mobile wallet so that you can have full control of your funds. When you want to trade, you can send some amount to the exchange, so you can start to trade and make a profit. But you should choose the exchange that will fit you want, and do not try to trade on the new exchange which you do not have more info.

i think all those Advise above are More than enough for your Concern ,And Having a Ledger Wallet is the Safest ,After Purchasing Bitcoin Again from Exchanges Make sure that your Ledger wallet are ready and set .

Specially now that The Market is really showing the Power of Bitcoin ,No wonder one of those sites Will turn into Scam because of the Big opportunity .

I'm not sure if Robinhood allows users to withdraw cryptocurrencies from their accounts, but you can do it the classic way. Sell all your holdings on Robinhood, transfer them to your bank account, then to an exchange, buy Bitcoin and then transfer them back to your personal wallet - preferably a cold one if you plan to hodl for long-term.

So where is the "beginner mistake"?
Since when is opening a Robinhood account and buying BTC considered a "beginner mistake"?
Did Robinhood scam you?Can you withdraw your fiat funds from Robinhood?
I think that Robinhood is the same as eToro and probably Paypal.They allow you to trade crypto,but they won't allow you to withdraw the crypt coins that you are buying outside of your trading account.
It seems to me that the traders aren't trading actual coins on apps like Robinhood.They are "trading" just digits.
 :(

Is there a way you can withdraw your Bitcoin on their site?  If so you can then withdraw it to your own wallet.  There are lots of trusted Bitcoin wallets (https://bitcoin.org/en/choose-your-wallet) where you have your own key or passphrase.  You just need a computer or a mobile phone to install them.  Or if you have the money you can use trezor or ledger (https://www.bitdegree.org/crypto/tutorials/trezor-vs-ledger).  But of course if you are new to this stuff, you can always search the internet to learn to curves of storing your own BTC.

Turn that cash into real Bitcoin on an exchange then invest in a Trezor wallet or other secure hardware wallets to store your coins and get crap forks if those wallets support them ...
So many meh forks the horror and buy BTC ^^

This is the right answer OP. But to what wallet you should use its all depend on you, can buy ledger wallet or use desktop wallet or mobile wallet depends on what you preferred to use that you can own the keys. But first sell all your bitcoin in robin hood and convert it to fiat then  buy from reputable crypto exchange that you can use in your  country .

Man, Just hold it there for now since the price was very volatile. Wait some time until the price become stable and liquidate your Bitcoin and use the fiat to buy on other exchange just like what other said. If your purpose of using Bitcoin was for money transfer then go to DEX but if your purpose was for trading then custodial exchange like robinhood was good for you.

Once you have bitcoin you should take it the safe place like storing to the bitcoin wallet to more secure the price of the bitcoin is very huge and I think it is not good of what really happen to you. I do not know about robinhood because I did not use it or I've never try it. Try to figure out what is the other way to access or open your account but do not expect about it but try it.

I highly suggest before you get into anything in life that you research it. Especially finance. You should understand how bitcoin works before even thinking of buying any.


Yep, the best way to go through it sounds criminal to me. Withdrawing fiat from a crypto exchange is just weird. Sounds very scammy to me. Why would a legit business do this? They wouldn't...
Yes, use local bitcoin traders only. The one I use is not some faceless scam like Binance and such. The owner is actually known and has an actual name and identity. Which means if something goes wrong something can be done, unlike these overseas shithole exchanges.

I think the easiest thing for a beginner to use is coinbase and a trezor to keep coins on. Coinbase is easy to change to coins fiat and your bank account. You also get a coinbase pro account where you have access to a real exchange where you can do things like limit and stop orders plus you get to buy many different alts there seamlessly.

I understand you about being a beginner.
But the problem of OP here are "not your keys, not your coins", he got a problem about ownership of his/her Bitcoin since the Bitcoin he owned is on centralized exchange and it clearly shows that you really don't own your Bitcoin there and centralized entity may steal your Bitcoin.
About Coinbase, I believe that it is still a centralized exchange.
But you can use Coinbase to buy Bitcoin and transfer your Bitcoin on non custodian Bitcoin wallet so you have the full control on your funds.

I did not even know that Robinhood has Bitcoin available on their services, AFAIK they are a good app for stock exchanges. OP should follow what the quote above says because only one attack is what it takes to lose all your coins in that account.

https://robinhood.com/us/en/support/articles/withdraw-money-from-robinhood/

It may really cause panic if you do not really understand what you are really up to and it seems like you and your friend are on the same current situation if you both are thinking to be purchasing real deal Bitcoin with the use of Robinhood. Since you haven't mention that you are having trouble with your account, it is more likely that you still have full access on it so what you must just do is to withdraw your funds into fiat and do a bank transfer to access those funds and find for another exchange where you can real deal buy Bitcoin since it is your real aim at the first place and have yourself a storage for the Bitcoin you will buy to keep it secure and safe all the way. Also, this may serve as a lesson for everyone to first allow yourself to get familiarize with the app or site you are signing it and better know their features if they would make you do withdrawals so you will not have the same issue with the OP before conducting purchases not to get yourself into the trouble of panic.

A typical mistake of a beginner when it comes to bitcoin is about trading when to sell your bitcoin when to buy a bitcoin and how to make your bitcoin wallet safe and theftproof.

I think you should contact Robinhood Support team. They can give you the best solution about your query. But Robinhood does not offer phone support or live chat, a major bummer considering the average age of the traders on its platform. Robinhood's customer support is done almost exclusively through a form email on its website or by emailing support[at the rate]robinhood[dot]com. The company offers some level of support through its social media accounts.

Recommending DEX would be good but it would be better to name few good DEX that could help a lot to everyone wishes to get a DEX. There are some DEX nowadays that are just for scam or is a phishing site in which you cqn transfer your keys into their platform but sadly a user just discloses his wallet in the platform without him knowing. This is why there are some allegations here from some user from their funds being stolen.

Usually, they will try to earn more satoshi in many ways, but they don't think about storing their bitcoin in other wallets to control their own funds. Many people who new to bitcoin also do not care about their funds and storing their bitcoin at the exchange for some time, and when the exchange got a problem, they are panic because their funds are at their site. We need to know how to store our bitcoin in a safety wallet so we don't be panic when the site is got hacked.

From my point of view, try taking out all of your funds in your Robinhood account because it is centralized; that is why you do not own your private keys. After taking out your funds, you should find a trusted decentralized wallet that provides private keys like Trustwallet, Coinbase, Blockchain, etc. You could also use a hardware wallet like Trezor and Ledger, which is much safer and secure to store all of your bitcoins.

Im not a gambler more of a math person, I like coin base because I can quickly sell my coins on my phone if the price does some crazy 10k/day dip. For the long term I  keep the BTC on the trezor because its about 99% safe from losing them with hardware and a seed incase the hardware fails/lost.

I have read some replies here and it looks like Robinhood doesn't allow users to withdraw cryptocurrencies.
Well, exchanging your Bitcoin into fiat is the best way for you to get out into it.

Having mistakes as a beginner is inevitable and all of us started from being a beginner. What's important is you are learning from your mistakes :). Now you know what you will do, do it and make another move. Find another exchange to trade with or if you want to hold some Bitcoins then use a hardware wallet.