MIAMI â Robinhood Markets (HOOD) said Thursday it has activated its crypto wallet for 2 million âeligibleâ customers, making digital asset transfers broadly possible in the long-firewalled investments app.
Chief Product Officer Aparna Chennapragada made the announcement on stage at the Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami.
Only a handful of wallet beta testers could move bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH), dogecoin (DOGE) and a handful of other traded coins in and out of Robinhoodâs walled garden before. Now, all waitlisted customers outside of regulatory no-go zones Nevada, New York and Hawaii can do so.
Additionally, she said Robinhood will add support for bitcoin transactions on the Lightning Network, the speedy, low-cost settlement layer for Bitcoin.
âFor the larger community this is a fantastic wayâ to access bitcoin cheaply and in a green way, she said, adding that BTC is the top recurring buy on the app.
A slide from the Robinhood presentation at Bitcoin 2022. (Sam Ewen/CoinDesk)
Nearly 10 million Robinhood users swapped coins early last year in one sign of the appâs crypto appeal, the company has said. Robinhoodâs almost three-year-old crypto trading functionally has produced an explosion of revenue, last quarter generating $48 million for the publicly traded firm.
âWallets are just the first step weâre taking to connect our customers to the broader crypto ecosystem,â CEO Vlad Tenev said in a press statement.
Still, Robinhoodâs multi-asset wallet falls short of true functionality. It cannot plug into Ethereum-based services as MetaMask does. It cannot accept ERC-20 tokens, non-fungible tokens (NFT) or any asset outside of Robinhoodâs trading list. Tokens generated by airdrops and forks wonât work either.
âAny NFTs sent to a Robinhood Ethereum address may be lost and unrecoverable,â the FAQ page said.
Staking also appears to be off-limits for now. Tenev has previously acknowledged customersâ desire for the yield-earning feature and said during last quarterâs earnings call that Robinhood was investing in the necessary tech. A staking service would have to be âcompliant,â he said.
Users wonât be charged for moving their Robinhood-based crypto into wallets that have such abilities. The company said it will apply estimated gas fees but not withdrawal fees to requested outbound transfers.
Thereâs a $5,000 daily cap on outbound transfers and newly acquired crypto stays put until the transaction settles, the web page said. Further, users must undergo an identity check and enable two-factor authentication to access the wallet.