Robinhood eyes new crypto wallet feature
Stock trading app Robinhood announced on Wednesday that it will begin offering crypto wallets and cryptocurrency transfer features on its app.
Reportedly, around 300,000 customers signed up for Robinhood’s wallet wait-list within hours of the announcement. The long-awaited move will make it easier for customers to send and receive digital currencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum and Dogecoin. It will also put the fast-growing retail stock brokerage in direct competition with more established digital currency venues such as Gemini Trust Co and Coinbase Global, which has recently abandoned a long-planned lending product after the SEC threatened to sue the company.
Speaking about the company’s new developments Robinhood’s Chief Executive Officer Vlad Tenev said that adding crypto wallets is a priority for the company’s developers.
“It’s something that our teams are working on. The ability to deposit and withdraw cryptocurrencies is tricky to do with scale, and we want to make sure it’s done correctly and properly,” he said.
Tenev did not disclose when the launch would occur however the company is expected to begin testing the wallets as part of an “alpha program” with a small group of customers in October before expanding the offering to its more than 32m registered users. Robinhood will also offer customers the option to set up two-factor authentication to use the feature. Last week the company also announced that it would allow users to set up recurring crypto-asset investments on a periodic basis, automatically.
Robinhood’s interest in crypto is understandable since cryptocurrency trading accounted for $233m of the company’s revenue in the second quarter of this year, up from $5m in the same quarter last year. Around 62% of revenue during that period were derived from trading in dogecoin.
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