Robinhood (NASDAQ:HOOD) has been long teasing broader adoption of crypto services on its platform. Since early last year, with the Dogecoin (DOGE-USD) price boom, the e-trading giant has been entrenched in centralized digital currency services. And today, it takes this relationship with crypto a step further, rolling out the Robinhood crypto wallet to a lengthy waitlist of users.
Robinhood is not at all new to the cryptocurrency game. Rather, the platform is one of the earliest adopters of the assets, at least compared to its peers. In early 2018, Robinhood opened up trading of Bitcoin (BTC-USD) and Ethereum (ETH-USD). In the years since, the offerings’ successes have pushed the company to expand. Then, in July of the same year, it added Dogecoin to its list. All in all, Robinhood accommodates transactions of seven different cryptos.
The Dogecoin boom of early 2021 is the event that changed everything; as the coin surged from 1 cent to 70 cents in just a few weeks, Robinhood was one of the most utilized points of entry for those looking to jump on the rocket. In Q2, DOGE trades alone accounted for a whopping 62% of the company’s crypto revenue.
What makes Robinhood so popular for trading crypto is that you don’t need to take a lot of the measures required for trading elsewhere. If one already has a Robinhood account, they needn’t set up a wallet or load funds. As a result, investors have been demanding more crypto products from the platform in the wake of the surge in popularity.
Robinhood Crypto Wallet Seeks to Bolster HOOD Stock
Since its initial public offering (IPO), HOOD stock has had a bit of struggle. For most of its time as a publicly traded stock, HOOD has been trending downward. Well, today’s news hopes to change that, as the Robinhood crypto wallet opens up to over two million users.
Since Robinhood first announced its crypto wallet in September, investors have been frothing for the rollout. Indeed, sign-ups for the wallet already exceed two million users. In January, a lucky 1,000 users were given access to a beta program to test out the coming product, adding to the hype.
Today, the rest of these patient users will have a chance to utilize the wallet; the company is enabling the wallet product for all eligible users who signed up.
The Robinhood crypto wallet is a significant step for the company. Previously, investors who bought crypto on Robinhood could only hold it and sell it back. While perfectly fine for any store-of-value investor, this is quite limiting to those who have taken an interest in DeFi and want to use those assets for other things. Now, users can use their wallet to send cryptocurrency back and forth from Robinhood and other trading floors, DeFi platforms and crypto wallets. In essence, the company is opening up to the broader crypto community.
As the news permeates the investing world, HOOD stock is still posting some losses today; shares are down by just over 6% at the time of writing.
On the date of publication, Brenden Rearick did not hold (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.
