In 2013, at a small coffee shop at the corner of Hamilton and Emerson in downtown Palo Alto, I met with Baiju Bhatt and Vlad Tenev to talk about their new startup. It hadn’t launched yet, but they were looking for advice and a seed round of funding. Even then, Robinhood had lofty dreams, and had already generated phenomenal interest.

It’s funny how fast things move in Silicon Valley.

Today, a little over a decade later, Robinhood is an industry giant and a public company worth over $20 billion. With over 24 million U.S. customers, Robinhood holds $142.2 billion in assets under custody, including more than $14.4 billion in crypto alone.

This is why we’re excited to announce native support for Robinhood Crypto.

Built using Robinhood Connect and Daffy’s APIs, this integration is a testament to the power of tying together two modern financial platforms. With Robinhood’s millions of U.S. customers, this collaboration has the potential to unlock hundreds of millions of dollars for charity by enabling tax-efficient crypto donations.

2024: A Big Year for Crypto

Crypto has had a stunning run in 2024. Bitcoin is up over $31,633 as of November 6, a gain of over 71.5%. New ETFs dedicated to Bitcoin, and then Ethereum, launched to incredible success, gathering over $70 billion in assets in less than a year. The total market capitalization of crypto eclipsed $2 trillion in 2024.

However, despite crypto’s incredible rise, charitable crypto donations remain underutilized. Very few crypto investors are aware of the benefits of donating crypto and even fewer charities can accept crypto directly.

This is a serious problem. As more and more wealth is invested in crypto, it is critical that some portion of these gains make their way to charitable organizations and causes.

One of the decisions Alejandro and I are most proud of is launching Daffy three years ago with native crypto support from Day 1. Today, we’re excited to be the first to partner with Robinhood to enable their customers to easily donate crypto to over 1.7 million charities across the U.S.

The Power of Native Robinhood Integration

Whether you prefer using Daffy from our native iOS application or our modern website, contributing crypto has never been easier. Simply select “Robinhood Connect” when you make a crypto contribution to Daffy, and you’ll be immediately presented with the native Robinhood interface. Select the coins and amount you want to donate, and Robinhood and Daffy will do the rest.

Remember, donating crypto has incredible tax advantages as well. By donating crypto that you have held over one year, not only can you deduct up to 30% of your adjusted gross income for the full market value of the crypto you donate, but you never pay the capital gains taxes on the crypto. You can estimate your potential tax savings with our free Crypto vs. Cash Donation calculator.

Lower taxes for you, and more money for the charitable organizations you support.

The best part is that this functionality is available today, giving you plenty of time before that December 31 deadline to make your tax-deductible donations for the 2024 tax year.

Donate Crypto with Daffy

Daffy was founded with a simple mission: to help people be more generous, more often. In a world where the major incumbents like Fidelity, Schwab, and Vanguard continue to delay supporting crypto, we feel we have a unique role to play to push this industry forward.

Daffy has the widest range of crypto-friendly features of any donor-advised fund.

• Over 240+ different crypto assets are supported.
• Direct Robinhood integration on both web & iOS.
• Native crypto portfolios in Bitcoin & Ethereum are available for all members.
• Bitcoin & Ethereum ETF support for Bitwise, Fidelity, Blackrock, and Van Eck.

Admittedly, it is somewhat amusing that you can invest your charitable dollars in the Fidelity Bitcoin ETF with Daffy, but not with Fidelity Charitable. 😉

We’re incredibly excited to help open up charitable giving to millions of Robinhood customers, and more importantly, to see more funds reach the charities and causes they support.

So if you have been fortunate enough to be invested in crypto, consider using some of those gains to support the charities and causes that you support.

Join us.