Will Robinhood Add More Crypto? (& When)
There have been plenty of talks about Robinhood considering adding more crypto to its platform other than the fundamentally popular ones while also letting investors and traders trade these coins with 0% transaction fees. This has led to a lot of deliberation from experts and top financial strategists because if Robinhood wants to add more crypto and also let traders trade with 0% transaction fees, how does Robinhood make its revenue? This has made users assume that the platform may not be able to add more crypto but let’s see if Robinhood plans to add more crypto to its platform in the nearest future.
According to Robinhood’s website, it plans to roll out its very own crypto wallet as this will aid the platform in adding more crypto to its trading platform. As announced, the platform’s crypto wallet is supposed to be launched in 2022 hence the platform should add more crypto during the period.
Although Robinhood currently trades the major cryptocurrencies on its trading platform, it doesn’t trade a wide number of cryptocurrencies. In this piece, I’ll discuss if Robinhood will add more crypto and when its integrated crypto wallet will be rolled out.
Will Robinhood Add More Crypto?
According to the company’s recent earnings call, the CEO, Vlad Tenev, acknowledged that the brokerage firm’s customers want new coins, the ability to deposit and withdraw crypto, as well as ways to earn interest on their crypto hence, the platform may add more crypto to its current collection to satisfy customer wants. Although this will help the platform to gain new customers as now customers will be able to buy, sell, withdraw and transfer crypto of their choice, it won’t be an easy feat to just add the new crypto coins without considering the safety and security of the company.
This means that as much as the company is looking to satisfy customer needs, it’s required to consider safety and security hence why the company isn’t rushing to add new crypto coins. This step has to be a carefully planned one as the crypto-verse is a very delicate space where once there’s a lack of safety and security, hackers may be able to hack the brokerage firm’s crypto platform and steal user data or even wipe away cryptocurrencies from customer’s wallets.
It’s unarguable that Robinhood sees its customer’s frustrations when it comes to them being unable to transfer crypto from their Robinhood account to an external crypto wallet. This is why the platform’s developers have been working tirelessly to create the platform’s crypto wallet. This wallet will help users to be able to save, withdraw or transfer their crypto from the platform’s wallet to another wallet irrespective of the blockchain network required to transfer the crypto
So, in anticipation of the brokerage firm’s integrated wallet, we may see Robinhood adding more crypto to its platform in 2022 to satisfy its customers’ needs and give them the liberty to transfer their crypto coins from the platform’s wallet to any other wallet or exchange they want.
When Will Robinhood Add More Crypto?
Although Robinhood hasn’t announced the particular date that the platform will add more cryptocurrencies, the best guess is once the integrated crypto wallet goes live, the platform will also add more cryptocurrencies to its trading platform. The first version of the integrated wallet was announced to go live by February 2022 hence we may see the adoption of new cryptocurrencies during this period. According to Robinhood’s Chief Operating Officer, Christine Brown, the brokerage firm understands its position on how much the platform’s traders and investors need access to new cryptocurrencies and the ability to transfer and withdraw their coin from one wallet to another.
“Most of us know Bitcoin but there are other major coins like Ether and Litecoin, as well as countless more niche cryptocurrencies popping up all the time. Robinhood will not provide many details about its criteria for which coins will be added, which coins will be ignored, and when the coins will be added to the trading platform for investors and traders to gain access”, he implied.
Brown also mentioned that the cryptocurrency universe is huge, there are thousands of crypto coins out there and Robinhood does have a process to review all the crypto coins it wants to list to make sure it’s listing coins that meet a certain level of criteria and standards on its side. There’s a bit of secret in the sauce of what our listing framework contains, he said. But we do put all of our coins through a rigorous review process before it’s on the platform and accessible to our users, he continued.
There’s no predetermined date for when Robinhood will add more crypto as it seems the platform is presently focusing on creating its integrated wallet which will be the basis for the platform to add more crypto hence, we may see new crypto coins being traded on the platform once the new integrated crypto wallet is launched.
What Cryptos Will Be Added To Robinhood?
Although Robinhood plans to add new crypto coins to its trading platform for investors to be able to trade a variety of cryptocurrencies, the brokerage firm hasn’t announced what cryptocurrencies it will be adding to its trading platform for traders and investors. Presently, the platform only supports the following crypto coins:
- Bitcoin SV (BSV)
- Bitcoin Cash (BCH)
- Bitcoin (BTC)
- Dogecoin (DOGE)
- Litecoin (LTC)
- Ethereum Classic (ETC)
- Ethereum (ETH)
Other cryptocurrencies that are supposed to be added to the platform haven’t been determined or announced but according to Robinhood’s Chief Operating Officer, there are criteria that will be used to determine which crypto coin will be added to the platform. There are a lot of crypto coins out there as the crypto-verse is very huge, so it’s important that before adding more crypto coins to the trading platform, the coins satisfy major criteria determined by Robinhood.
Robinhood has hinted that it will support most of the popular cryptocurrencies in the nearest future. You just have to be on the lookout for when the announcement is made by the platform so you’d know which of the most popular cryptocurrencies have been added to the trading platform.
When Will Robinhood Roll out An Integrated Crypto Wallet
Presently, users have been able to add their names to the waitlist for the crypto wallet. The waitlist will be used to roll out the integrated wallet to users on the waitlist so as to be able to get a firsthand experience of how the integrated crypto wallet works. The waitlist will also help Robinhood to get feedback on user experience before finally rolling it out generally to the public.
According to Robinhood’s website, the integrated crypto wallet will be released in early 2022 and users can begin to users on the waitlist will be able to have firsthand experience of the wallet. According to the chief operating officer, the wallet will be rolled out to a beta group of initial customers in the coming months via the waitlist so these set of users get an early version of the wallet. Robinhood will also be looking to these users for feedback and first experiences while the platform continues to build the wallet in public until it satisfies most of the user requirements.