Yahoo Finance Robinhood muscles deeper into Coinbase's territory with new crypto wallet feature
The fervor around Dogecoin delivered big revenues for stock-trading app Robinhood, and the company announced Wednesday that it's wandering deeper down the crypto rabbit hole, sharing that it will soon begin testing crypto wallets for its users.
The crypto wallets, which Robinhood says it will begin rolling out next month over time to users on its waitlist, will allow users to trade, send and receive crypto tokens inside the app. The update brings Robinhood an oft-requested feature for crypto users, and brings the app deeper into the crypto ecosystem. Users had previously been able to buy and sell a few cryptocurrencies including Dogecoin and Bitcoin, but had been unable to send those coins to external wallets or receive them from elsewhere.
The move will open Robinhood up to many of the opportunities in the crypto space that rivals like Coinbase have been able to capitalize on. It simultaneously pushed the company into an area with even more regulatory obscurity. This week, Coinbase abandoned a long-planned lending product after the SEC threatened to sue the company.
2020 and 2021 have been breakout years for the cryptocurrency world, with coins bouncing up and down throughout the period but reaching gains much higher overall. Coinmarketcap estimates the global market cap for cryptocurrencies stands at just shy of $2 trillion.
Investors seem bullish about the company leaning deeper into the crypto space, Robinhood's stock was up more than 10% in trading today.
