Robinhood announced the addition of cryptocurrency investments to its platform in January 2018. But, much to the chagrin of Bitcoiners, the app didn’t include the option to withdraw assets from the platform.
Robinhood announced an alpha version of its proprietary cryptocurrency wallet in September 2021 and the beta version on January 3, 2022 (otherwise known as “Proof Of Keys Day”). With one million users signing up in less than 30 days to access the wallet, it’s clear that Robinhood customers want access to the private keys corresponding to the cryptocurrency they purchase through the platform.
Robinhood’s chief product officer, Aparna Chennapragad, took the stage at Bitcoin 2022 to elaborate on how the company is responding to that demand.
First underscoring the growth that bitcoin is seeing at the moment, she noted that, “More than 50% of our customers are new investors.”
One-third of Robinhood’s customers are women and the group of customers is extremely diverse. Chennapragad believes, “It’s important to have safe and secure access to bitcoin.”
According to the slide deck, “Bitcoin is the number-one recurring buy asset for 2022” for Robinhood.
And, critically, Chennapragad announced that more than two million people on the Robinhood waitlist can now send and receive bitcoin to and from the app as Robinhood unveiled withdrawals and deposits at Bitcoin 2022.
Additionally, Chennapragad announced Robinhood’s intention to bring Lightning Network to the platform in the near future. Its reasons for doing so include the fast transactions, low-fee transfers and lower carbon footprint that Lightning payments enable
Bitcoin 2022 is part of the Bitcoin Event Series hosted by BTC Inc, the parent company of Bitcoin Magazine.