Latest News by Industry
Robinhood Markets Inc said on Wednesday it will begin testing digital wallets for cryptocurrency from the next month and plans a broader rollout in early 2022, allowing users to move supported digital currencies in and out of their brokerage accounts.
The retail brokerage currently allows trading and holding of seven cryptocurrencies in its platform, including Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin SV, Dogecoin, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic and Litecoin.
Since the inception of the COVID-19 pandemic, Robinhood users benefited from a boom in retail trading and was long asking for crypto wallets, which would allow them to take part in blockchain-based ecosystems, like buying non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on the Ethereum network.
More recently, some customers, especially Dogecoin traders, have taken to social media complaining that Robinhood provides exposure to crypto prices but not actual ownership of the coins themselves.
“This is the natural next step for us when we think about democratizing finance for all, being able to have a lot more people from a lot of different contexts participate in this emerging market, and wallets are the key,” Robinhood’s chief product officer, Aparna Chennapragada told Reuters.
The Menlo Park-based firm plans to survey its current crypto-trading customers, which is about 60% of the app’s 21.3 million active users, and pick few respondents to start testing the new wallets, and others can join a waitlist for future access to the wallets.
The wallets will have security features such as identity verification, multi-factor authentication, and email and phone verification to keep coins safe from hacks and other threats, Robinhood said.
“One of the things we’ve been trying to do is make sure that this is built safely, built securely,” which was one of the main challenges in developing the new feature, Chennapragada told Reuters.
The company said it would have commission-free crypto trading through the wallet and touted that other platforms charge 4% on every trading.
Picture Credit: Business Insider