Time travel: if Robinhood had more friends, would the DTCC event never take place?

Before and after the Senate hearings, there was a great deal of scrutiny about the owners of Robinhood. There are ways for you to find out about all financial services professionals. No one is hiding.    

Why do we now know so much about the CEO of Robinhood? The news seems skewed against the upstarts. Let me give you some tools then I will give you my opinion.

Check out your Broker and other Wall Street professionals

Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) is the self-regulatory organization of the broker dealer, brokerages, the brokerage industry. Self-regulatory means it regulates itself. FINRA requires testing, reporting and other compliance requirements. All of it is intended to keep the markets fair. How successful do you think FINRA has been so far, at keeping markets fair?

Broker Check is a tool for checking who has the licenses and registrations necessary for the brokerage industry. FINRA provides this service so customers can check their broker's history. I checked out the background of Jamie Dimon. The truth sets us free. 

Robinhood has started a dialogue across America and the globe. Watching how the narrative unfolds reveals privilege and a desperate attempt to maintain it. Wall Street does not like upstarts unless they are funding it. 

As far as DTCC, all I can see is that in black swan events it helps to have friends willing to save you. 

Citadel and others funded Melvin in return for a type of share in the company.  Robinhood is a disrupter so maybe it has fewer friends?

As far as Depository Trust - that is the process working to protect the investor

When stocks are bought and sold in the secondary market like a stock exchange, like the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), each buy must be match with a sell. For example, a Robinhood customer buys 100 shares of GameStop (GME) someone must sell 100 shares to them. That one transaction must be cleared, matched and everyone gets paid. The buyer pays for the shares and owns the shares the seller gets money for the shares and those shares leave her account. The company that helps manage the details of the matching and clearing is the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC).

 Everyone pays to play. Brokerage firms must pay to be part of the DTCC clearing system. Robinhood stopped trading in certain stocks and sought a cash infusion in order to meet other obligations to DTCC due to the volatility. Think about the subprime credit crisis and the domino effect of bank and investment bank failures. Cash infusion was necessary to manage volatility that creates insecurity. DTCC asked for more money. Robinhood did not have the money and could not afford to have clients continue trading in case their clients ran out of money - stopgap measure.   

Those obligations of Robinhood and DTCC are part of the system. They are not a weakness. 

This seems to me to be more about Robinhood inexperience or truly a completely unexpected event - most likely the former.