Robinhood to Plan Testing Cryptocurrency Wallets, Speeding up Crypto Territory Escalation

Robinhood Markets has announced that it plans to start testing cryptocurrency wallets next month, with a broader rollout in early 2022 to allows its customers to move supported crypto assets in and out of their brokerage accounts.

On September 22, the new public brokerage firm has stated that it plans to begin surveying its current crypto trading customers in the next few weeks, who constitute about 60% of the app’s 21.3 million active users and select a small group of respondents to start testing the new wallets and provide feedback.

Robinhood’s crypto lead Christine Brown talked about the development. She said that the firm would take the alpha users’ feedback and address it publicly via its blog and social media account on Twitter. Brown also stated that people on the waiting list will begin getting access to wallets by the end of 2021 and that Robinhood’s cryptocurrency wallets will generally be available in early 2022.

The Menlo Park-based retail brokerage firm allows holding, buying, and selling crypto assets at present, like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Dogecoin. Last quarter, Robinhood witnessed cryptocurrency transactions exceeded equities transactions for the first time.

RobinHood customers, who benefited from a boom in retail trading during the pandemic, have long asked for cryptocurrency wallets. Some community members feel that buying and selling cryptocurrencies on Robinhood does not let them own crypto. For example, customers of Robinhood currently can’t use their Bitcoin holdings in the app to buy an NFT and cannot use the Robinhood app to buy stocks with Bitcoin. 

The so-called cryptocurrency wallet will allow customers to receive, trade, and spend digital currencies, as well as move them in and out of the Robinhood app. Furthermore, the crypto wallet will enable customers to buy stocks, digital assets like non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and other products using cryptocurrencies and transfer or spend their crypto coins without converting them into another fiat currency first.

Brown stated that the wallet will initially only support holding the Robinhood Crypto’s coins, covering major coins like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Dogecoin.  Furthermore, Robinhood is planning to expand the currencies available on its platform in the future.

Companies Earn Millions in Revenue from Crypto

Last month, Robinhood Markets announced that cryptocurrency accounted for more than half of all transaction-based- based sales in the second quarter and disclosed that 62% of cryptocurrency revenue came from dogecoin, a meme-inspired digital coin.

The company stated that its revenue from cryptocurrency transactions in the second quarter was $233 million. It accounted for 52% of transaction-based revenue, up from $5 million in the second quarter of last year and an increase from 17% in the first quarter this year.

While Robinhood has gained popularity by offering free stock trading to a new generation of investors, the firm has also been a big beneficiary of the surge in the cryptocurrency market. Robinhood app allows customers to sell and buy seven cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash.

Coinbase, which went public earlier this year, Square’s Cash App, and PayPal are also other popular services used by US consumers to sell and buy cryptocurrencies.