Robinhood said that it will be activating crypto wallets for its 2 million waitlisted customers widening its wallet access and crypto transfers.
One of the most popular stock trading apps Robinhood is preparing for a bold move in crypto. On Thursday, April 7, Robinhood Markets (NASDAQ: HOOD) announced that it has activated its crypto wallet for its 2 million customers.
Crypto Wallet by Robinhood
Thus, it is widening access to its crypto wallet making crypto transfers as broadly available as possible. Robinhood’s Chief Product Officer Aparna Chennapragada made this announcement on Thursday during the Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami.
Previously, only a few crypto wallet beta testers could move Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Dogecoin (DOGE) in and out of Robinhood’s walled garden. Now, all the waitlisted customers will be able to do it. however, they should be out of the regulatory no-go zone of New York, Nevada, and Hawaii.
Robinhood’s website also notes that the company’s “corporate wallets secure all of [its] customers’ coins, so we don’t provide customers with the private keys to those wallets”. Furthermore, as Robinhood removes its walled garden, users can move their assets off from Robinhood to hardware wallets such as Ledger and Trezor or software wallets such as MetaMask.
Robinhood Plans to Integrate Bitcoin Lightning Network
Since Robinhood has a very large user base to cater to, it is planning to add support for the Bitcoin Lightning Network. The Lightning Network is a Layer-2 scalability solution for Bitcoin. It allows for faster and low fees transactions while helping to reduce congestion on the Bitcoin mainnet.
Chennapragada said that “for the larger community this is a fantastic way” to access bitcoin cheaply. Robinhood further added:
“We will be adding the ability to transact on the Bitcoin Lightning Network, an open-source ‘layer-2’ for Bitcoin transactions in the near future”.
The zero-commission trading app said that it will be releasing more updates in the coming months. Apart from Robinhood, other crypto trading platforms like Kraken are also adding support for the Bitcoin Lightning Network.
Lightning Labs, the company behind the Lightning Network, has recently announced a $70 million fundraise and its new Taro protocol that will facilitate stablecoin transfers on Bitcoin.
Robinhood first started facilitating the crypto trade back in 2018. Crypto trading has helped to boost the company’s revenue. “Wallets are just the first step we’re taking to connect our customers to the broader crypto ecosystem,” said Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev.
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