Investors are flocking to trade Dogecoin and other hot digital tokens on Voyager, a

The crypto broker Voyager had 371% growth in membership in 2020 from the end of 2019.
Its CEO explains why he lets investors trade Dogecoin and why he won’t set trading restrictions.
He shares Bitcoin forecasts, tips on earning interest on cash in crypto, and three tokens to watch.
Visit the Business section of Insider for more stories.

2020 was the year of the digital and online brokers, as retail investors flocked to investing and trading apps.

But this popularity has its challenges. Last week, users from the Reddit forum Wall Street Bets pushed up the price of GameStop and other small-cap stocks that had been heavily shorted by hedge funds. This created extreme volatility in the stocks challenged the capital requirements of many brokers, such as Robinhood.

The cryptocurrency broker Voyager experienced growth in trading grow five times larger in January after witnessing a 371% increase in membership last year, and the expansion isn’t stopping, CEO Stephen Ehrlich said.

One of the main drivers has been Bitcoin. As the price surged in December, there was a renewed interest in the asset, which can be bought and sold on the platform.

Read more: 4 heavyweight investing firms answer the 5 most burning bitcoin questions facing investors as the cryptocurrency sees unprecedented volatility

Then late last week, when Robinhood and several other brokers halted trading on specific stocks, retail investors looked to other platforms.

“We saw an amazing influx of customers come to our platform over a 72-hour period,” Ehrlich said.

Voyager’s goal is to simplify cryptocurrency trading. Retail investors can sign up in three minutes or less. But because of the current influx, there is a waiting list that is moving quickly, Ehrlich said. Investors can then start building out a portfolio from over 50 digital assets.

The platform has a deep pool of liquidity, which makes it easy for investors to trade in and out of cryptocurrencies.

Trading Dogecoin and regulation

The platform also gained interest as it offered trading in Dogecoin. The Reddit forum Satoshi Street Bets encouraged investors to buy into the asset after Robinhood halted trading.

Dogecoin is a cryptocurrency that was created as a joke and based on the popular “Doge” meme. Mike Novogratz, a billionaire investor and the founder of a crypto merchant bank, recently predicted the asset would fall to zero in the long run. But it also has some benefits, such as a fast blockchain and no cap on supply.

It’s not up to Voyager to decide what investors trade, Ehrlich said, the platform is an agency broker.

“I’ll leave the regulators to what the requirements are to do that,” Ehrlich said. “I do believe in free and fair markets for all and let them trade whatever the investing public and trading public wants to.”

Regulators had to step in with the XRP token created by the firm…