During a Saturday webcast, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev announced that the popular trading app might at some point introduce a cryptocurrency wallet, Business Insider reports:
We've been doing a lot of work behind the scenes to provide our crypto customers with the functionality that they've been asking for. We know you want wallets.
While it might come as a surprise for some novice Robinhood users, the popular stock trading app doesn’t sell its users actual crypto. Instead, they get “I-owe-you” (IOU) notes on behalf of the company.
Those who buy cryptocurrencies on Robinhood are not capable of moving their holdings to other wallets, a notable limitation that attracts harsh criticism from the “not your keys, not your coins” crowd.
New cryptocurrency features will not be limited to wallets, according to Tenev. However, he also added that the company was working on introducing these features “safely.”
Robinhood’s crypto play
Despite its controversial withdrawal policy and a fairly small number of available coins, cryptocurrency trading has been a resounding success for Robinhood.
The online brokerage firm managed to score 6 million new crypto users only in the first two months of 2021.
As reported by U.Today, Robinhood revealed that Dogecoin, a popular meme cryptocurrency, accounted for 34 percent of its total revenue derived from cryptocurrency transactions.
Overall, crypto transactions were responsible for 17 percent of the company’s quarterly revenue.
Vladislav Sopov