A first crypto purchase is usually a dollar amount, not a whole coin. You type $100, choose whether the order fills now or waits for a price, and decide whether it repeats next week. If the coin jumps more than 1% before the fill, that order can be skipped and the cash stays where it is.
That purchase sits on a crypto account held with Robinhood Crypto, LLC, separate from the Robinhood Financial investing account that holds stocks, ETFs, and options. You pay with buying power, a bank transfer, or a debit card when that option is offered on the order. The smallest order on the default route is $0.01, and the smallest on exchange routing is $0.03 (source: Robinhood, Buying and selling crypto).
What that fill costs, the spread on the default route and the percentage fee if you switch on exchange routing, is the subject of Robinhood crypto fees explained.
What is buying crypto on Robinhood?
Buying crypto on Robinhood means placing a dollar or coin order on your Robinhood Crypto account, in a market that runs 24/7, paid from cash buying power. The coins stay in that custodial account until you sell them or send them out.
A Robinhood Crypto account is the brokerage book for these trades. It is not Robinhood Wallet, which holds coins you control with a key on your phone. A buy described in this article lands in the brokerage crypto account. Moving those coins into the wallet is a later transfer, with its own network fee.
You can buy a fraction of a coin, so the order does not have to equal one whole unit of that coin. A $100 buy of a coin priced in the thousands is only a small slice of one coin. Crypto also trades through the night and on weekends, aside from scheduled maintenance (source: Robinhood, Buying and selling crypto).
Three order types cover almost every buy you will place. A market order asks for a fill now, inside a price ceiling. A limit order waits for a price you set, or a better one. A recurring investment repeats a dollar amount on a schedule you choose. Web classic sends the order through market maker routing only on that screen (source: Robinhood, Buying and selling crypto). The app lets you pick between that route and exchange routing for the coins that support both routes. The default route builds its cost into the spread, and exchange routing adds its own fee line to the order.
When you later sell, cost basis is tracked first-in, first-out: the coins you bought earliest are treated as the ones sold first. Sale proceeds can be used at once for more crypto, for stocks, or for options. Cash sent back to your bank follows the usual Automated Clearing House window. That bank leg can require as many as 5 business days to finish (source: Robinhood, Buying and selling crypto).
How do you place a crypto buy?
In the app, a crypto buy is four steps from the Crypto tab through a swipe to submit. On web classic the same path ends with a Submit button. Both paths ask you to confirm the order type before the review screen.
In the app, the buy runs in this order:
- Open the Crypto tab on the home screen, search for the coin, and open its detail page.
- Tap Buy and enter the dollar amount, or the coin amount if you are sizing in units.
- Open the Actions menu, the down arrow, and confirm whether the order is a market order, a recurring investment, or a send and receive.
- Tap Review, then swipe up to submit the order (source: Robinhood, Buy or sell crypto).
On web classic, the first actions match the app through the amount and the Actions menu you already used. The review button reads Review order. The last button reads Submit buy (source: Robinhood, Buy or sell crypto). Read that review screen before the last action, because the estimated price, the order type, and the dollar total sit there together.
Confirm the coin symbol on that screen, because several names look alike. Confirm whether you typed dollars or coins, because a coin-sized order on an expensive asset can be far larger than you meant. Confirm the order type is a market order if you want a fill now. If the menu still says recurring, you have scheduled a series of buys.
The price on the coin's detail page is the mid price, the midpoint between the bid and the ask. A market buy can fill at the ask, which can sit above that mid price (source: Robinhood, Why do the crypto mid price and order price differ?). The review screen is where you compare the price you are about to pay with that mid price. If the gap looks wide, wait or switch to a limit order, which the next section covers in detail. The buying rules cover order types together with size limits and the estimated price you will see (source: Robinhood, Buying and selling crypto).
After the fill, the coins show on the coin page inside the crypto account, and you can sell them immediately. Sending them to an external address can wait until a bank deposit that funded the buy has settled, which the buying-power section below covers.
What is the difference between a market buy and a limit buy?
A market buy fills at the best price available, up to 1% above the price when you placed it. A limit buy fills only at the price you set, or a better one. The market order can cancel itself after 2 minutes if it never trades (source: Robinhood, Buying and selling crypto).
A market order, in ordinary markets, is a request to trade immediately at the best price then available (source: Investopedia, Market Order). Robinhood turns a crypto market order into a limit order with a buffer. The buy buffer runs up to 1% above the price at placement. The sell buffer is up to 5% below the price at the time you sell. If the coin rises more than 1% from the price at the moment you tapped buy, the market buy does not trade. An order still open after 2 minutes may be canceled on its own (source: Robinhood, Buying and selling crypto). The buffer is there so a sudden jump, the slippage between the quote and the fill, does not run far past the price you just saw. It also means a fast market can leave you with no coins and your cash still sitting untouched.
A limit order buys or sells a set amount at a set price, or better. You choose that price, and if the market never reaches it, the order waits. That wait is the tradeoff against a market order: you control the worst price, and you give up the certainty of a fill in the next few seconds. The same choice shows up in any market, limit, and stop order tutorial. A stop order, once the coin trades at its stop price, becomes a market order and then uses the same 1% buy buffer or 5% sell buffer (source: Robinhood, Buying and selling crypto).
Work a $100 market buy with a round price so the ceiling is easy to see on paper. Suppose the coin is $4,000 when you submit: 1% of $4,000 is $40, so the order is capped at $4,040. A trade at $4,020 can still fill, and a trade at $4,050 cannot. Divide the dollars by the fill price to see the coins. $100 at $4,000 is 0.025 of a coin, and a fill at $4,020 is a little less, about 0.0249. The $4,000 figure is an illustration, and the review screen carries the live price.
Use a market buy when you want the coins now and the spread on the review screen is tight enough. Use a limit buy when you will only pay up to a price you picked, and you can stand to miss the trade. Either way, check the route in the app before you submit, because web classic cannot switch off market maker routing (source: Robinhood, Buying and selling crypto).
How do recurring crypto buys work on Robinhood?
A recurring crypto buy repeats a dollar amount on a schedule you choose. Orders in one coin go out together in the early evening, Eastern time, and each order carries a 1% price cap so a spike can skip that run.
You can schedule those buys inside the Robinhood Crypto account. The repeating schedule accepts dollar amounts only. A fixed count of whole coins is not an option on it (source: Robinhood, Recurring investments).
In the app, open the coin, tap Buy, choose Market buy, and then choose Recurring Investment under Conditional orders. Enter the start date, the frequency, the dollars, and the payment method. Paying from buying power lets you name a backup method for a day when buying power is short. Tap Review, then swipe up to submit the series (source: Robinhood, Recurring investments).
On web classic, open the coin and set the order type at the top right to Recurring investment. Enter the dollars, the frequency, the start date, and the payment method. If several accounts are open, pick the right one, then submit (source: Robinhood, Recurring investments).
These orders usually run from 5:30-7:00 PM ET. The aim is to send every recurring order in that coin at about the same time (source: Robinhood, Recurring investments).
On the default route, coins received equal the order's total cost divided by the execution price. On exchange routing, take the fee out of the dollars first. The coins then equal what remains, divided by the price (source: Robinhood, Recurring investments).
Each recurring crypto order goes out as a limit capped at 1% above the last trade. You can spend less than the dollars you entered on that run. Unused dollars return to crypto buying power. If the coin moves more than 1% above its price when the order went out, that run is skipped. You are notified that the charge stays inside the dollar amount you chose (source: Robinhood, Recurring investments).
A bank-funded run draws on instant-deposit capacity while the transfer is still moving. When that capacity is already used, the order waits until the bank transfer finishes. The wait can run as long as 5 business days. Your limit is listed under Account, then Investing, then Instant Deposits Health in the app (source: Robinhood, Recurring investments).
To change a series in the app, open Investing, select the account, then open Recurring investments and choose the series. Pause holds the series in place, and End removes it from the list. The amount row is where the dollars, the schedule, or the payment method change. On the web, open Recurring and use those same three choices. A repeating buy does not promise a profit or protect against a loss in the coin (source: Robinhood, Recurring investments).
What blocks a crypto buy on Robinhood?
A crypto buy needs enough settled or instant cash in the account before the order can go through. Crypto cannot be bought with margin borrowing, and an order that would push a margin account under its required balance is blocked. A restriction on the investing account can block the crypto account too.
On a Robinhood Crypto account, the coins are non-marginable, so they cannot serve as collateral for a margin loan. Place the order only when enough cash is already in the account. If you have a margin account at Robinhood Financial, a crypto order that would drop that account below its required maintenance balance will not place. The same block applies if the order would drop the account under its required minimum (source: Robinhood, Why can't I place a buy order on crypto?). Margin buying power cannot be used to purchase crypto (source: Robinhood, Crypto account funding).
An Instant account typically receives up to $1,000 of buying power for crypto trades before the bank deposit settles. Anything above that $1,000 of buying power waits for normal settlement before you can spend any of it. A Gold account can use instant access up to its Gold tier. Funds past that Gold tier wait for ordinary settlement as well (source: Robinhood, Crypto account funding).
Robinhood Crypto can also limit instant deposits, and it will tell you when that limit is in effect. Cash from a stock, ETF, or options sale becomes available for a crypto buy within 3 business days. On an Instant account, a capped cash deposit and the full proceeds of a crypto sale can usually be reused at once (source: Robinhood, Crypto account funding).
Instant Deposits are the slice of a still-pending bank deposit you may be allowed to trade with. The bank transfer behind that deposit can still take as long as 5 business days to finish (source: Robinhood, About Instant Deposits).
Coins bought with instant funds can be transferred out only after normal settlement, unless other holdings in the account are worth more than the unsettled transfers. You can still sell those coins inside the account before that. Check transfer history under Account, then History, for the estimated date the bank funds land (source: Robinhood, Crypto account funding).
A restriction on the investing account can carry over onto crypto orders. If that account is blocked from buying stocks, crypto buys may stay blocked until the restriction lifts (source: Robinhood, Why can't I place a buy order on crypto?). A recurring order has extra skip rules, covered in the questions at the end, including a margin account falling under its minimum.
If the buy button fails, check cash first, then whether the order would dip a margin balance, then whether the investing account is restricted. A market order that simply missed its 1% ceiling looks like a failure too, but the cash never left.
What does a first ETH buy look like?
Three cases cover the buy you will actually place: a one-off market buy of ETH, a margin rejection, and a weekly recurring buy that a price jump can skip. The dollar figures below are round illustrations, and the review screen has the live price.
Say you want $100 of ETH, and the price when you submit a market buy is $4,000, so the 1% ceiling is $4,040. If the order fills at $4,000, you receive 0.025 ETH, because $100 divided by $4,000 is 0.025. If it fills at $4,020, you receive about 0.0249 ETH. If ETH trades at $4,050 before the fill, the order does not trade, and after 2 minutes it may cancel with the $100 still in buying power. On web classic this order uses market maker routing, so the cost is the spread you read on the review screen. In the app you can switch on exchange routing before you submit, and that route shows its own fee line.
A common mistake is to count margin. The app shows buying power that includes a margin loan, and your cash is below $100. Margin buying power stays unavailable when you purchase crypto (source: Robinhood, Crypto account funding). The same block appears if spending the cash would push the margin account under its required maintenance or minimum (source: Robinhood, Why can't I place a buy order on crypto?). Move settled cash in first, or wait for a stock-sale credit, which can take up to 3 business days, and place the $100 buy only when the cash figure covers it.
Now say you set a weekly recurring buy of $40 of ETH, paid from a linked bank. The order goes out in the 5:30-7:00 PM ET window, with the other ETH recurring orders, as a limit collared 1% above the last trade. At a $4,000 last trade the collar is $4,040, the same ceiling as the market buy, and a trade above it skips the week, so you are not charged more than $40. If the fill costs $39.20, the remaining $0.80 returns to crypto buying power. Because you pay from the bank, the $40 also uses $40 of instant deposit allowance. If that allowance is already spent, this week's buy waits for the transfer, up to 5 business days, and then places. The series buys a fraction of ETH each week, which is a slice of one coin on every run.
Once that ETH is in the Robinhood Crypto account, moving it somewhere else is often the next decision, and that is a different way to trade the same coin. If you want another venue for ETH, BloFin lists ETH/USDT Spot, where you buy and sell the coin, and the ETHUSDT Perpetual, a contract that tracks the ETH price.
Maker and taker rates for those markets are on the BloFin fee schedule. Read your rate and the live bid and ask before you move the coins, so the next trade's cost is visible first.
How does a Robinhood ETH buy compare with trading ETH on BloFin?
A Robinhood buy holds ETH in a custodial account, and a market order there is capped at 1%. On BloFin that same coin can trade on an order book, or as a perpetual contract that charges funding while the position is open.
On Robinhood you sized the buy in dollars and accepted the buffer. On BloFin the same $100 of ETH can be a limit buy on the order book: you set the price, the order rests until someone trades with it, and there is no 2-minute cancel built into the order type. That order book is what ETH/USDT Spot trading uses. A market buy there takes the best ask and pays the taker fee, while a limit buy that waits pays the maker fee. The fee schedule you opened above already has the tier for that order.
The ETHUSDT Perpetual is a different product from ETH/USDT Spot. A perpetual futures contract has no expiration date at all. A funding-rate payment between long and short holders keeps the contract near the spot price. When the funding rate is positive, long holders pay short holders. When the funding rate is negative, short holders pay long holders. The position therefore costs or earns more the longer it stays open. Perpetual futures also carry leverage and margin risk (source: Investopedia, What Are Perpetual Futures?). If you use that contract, size the ETHUSDT position for leverage and liquidation, and keep the stop inside a loss you can close.
A simple plan for the $100 of ETH you just figured uses the same four numbers on either venue. The size is $100, and the entry is a limit at the price you will actually pay, $4,000 in the illustration, so the order can rest. The stop goes where the idea is wrong, for example 5% lower, at $3,800, which risks about $5 on this size. The target needs enough room to clear the costs of getting in and getting out. Exit with a limit sell at that target, or at the stop if the price gets there first. On the perpetual, add the funding you expect for the days you will hold, and do not treat the contract as the same thing as the 0.025 ETH a spot buy delivered.
Looking to trade ETH on BloFin? To get started, you'll need to first create a BloFin account, fund your account with cryptocurrency, and navigate to the ETH/USDT Spot trading page or the ETHUSDT Perpetual page.
Frequently asked questions
Does a scheduled purchase have to equal one coin?
The scheduler takes a dollar entry, which means each run buys part of a coin. A request for exactly one coin, or for a stack of whole coins, is turned away. Open the asset, pick the repeating type, and type the dollars together with a start date and a rhythm such as weekly. What arrives in the account is those dollars divided by the fill price. When exchange routing is the active route, the fee comes off the dollars before that division (source: Robinhood, Recurring investments).
How large can one coin position get?
Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, PEPE, SHIB, and XRP are each capped at a cost basis of $50,000,000. Any other listed coin is capped at a cost basis of $20,000,000. A purchase that would cross that cost basis does not go through. The ceiling is measured in dollars of cost, meaning the amount you paid. A low-priced coin can therefore be a much bigger pile of units before it reaches the same ceiling (source: Robinhood, Buying and selling crypto).
What skips a repeating crypto purchase on a margin account?
Margin adds one skip that an account without margin does not have. If margin is enabled and the crypto purchase would leave the brokerage account below $2,000, that run is skipped. That $2,000 figure is the floor a margin account has to keep. A shortfall of crypto buying power, a bank transfer that fails, or a technical error can skip a run as well. A pause is a different event from a skipped run. It can follow a reversed deposit, a bank that was disconnected, a trading restriction on the coin, or an account limited to closing positions (source: Robinhood, Recurring investments).
What can increase instant buying power on a deposit?
Robinhood Gold can enlarge Instant Deposits in some cases on a pending bank deposit. The subscription is priced at $5 per month or at $50 per year. You receive that access only while your transfer standing stays clean. Individual self-directed accounts share one allowance, and that allowance is sized from their combined portfolio value across those accounts. Using it on one of those accounts leaves less for the others. A joint account keeps a separate allowance, sized from that account's portfolio value on the prior day (source: Robinhood, About Instant Deposits).
Where do you attach a second way to pay a scheduled buy?
Choose buying power as the payment and a second method can sit behind it. The app asks for that second method while you build the series. On web classic, that second method sits in a field labeled Backup. Its job is to keep the series going on a day when buying power is too small to cover the run. A series paid directly from a bank does not use that field. It spends instant-deposit capacity and then waits for the deposit to land if that capacity is already gone (source: Robinhood, Recurring investments).
Who can turn on a repeating crypto purchase?
Every coin Robinhood Crypto lists can be placed on a repeating purchase. Coverage includes the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, and each US state. If the repeating choice is missing from the order menu, update the app before you try the order again. After that update, a missing choice usually means the state on the account does not offer Robinhood Crypto. Later, the series can be held, edited, or removed from the list of repeating purchases (source: Robinhood, Recurring investments).
Researched and written by the BloFin Academy editorial team with AI-assisted drafting. Updated September 2026. Primary sources: Robinhood Buying and selling crypto, Robinhood Buy or sell crypto, Robinhood About recurring investments and orders, Robinhood Crypto account funding, Robinhood Why can't I place a buy order on crypto?, Robinhood Why do the crypto mid price and order price differ?, Robinhood About Instant Deposits, Investopedia Market Order, and Investopedia What Are Perpetual Futures?. All facts independently verified against cited documentation current as of September 2026.
This article is educational and general in nature, not financial or investment advice. Cryptocurrency prices are volatile, order buffers and buying-power rules can change, and a recurring buy does not protect against loss. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any asset. Do your own research, and consider a licensed professional before making financial decisions. BloFin does not provide investment advice.