The Robinhood app is already one of the most popular for buying/selling crypto, and thanks to the recent introduction of crypto wallets, it's getting even better. The many rises and falls of cryptocurrency over the last couple of years have been fascinating to watch. There are more people trading cryptos than ever before, new coins are seemingly created every single day, and there's even talk of companies like Amazon and Apple getting involved in the crypto niche. Bitcoin and Ethereum may not be replacing the United States Dollar any time soon, but there's clearly a rising interest in decentralized currencies.
One company that's been all-in on crypto for a while now is Robinhood. The commission-free stock trading app launched cryptocurrency trading back in 2018. Since then, it's added more coins for users to trade, automatic buying functionality, and other features to flesh out the buying/selling experience. While that's all been great for users who are only interested in the trading aspect of crypto, Robinhood hasn't allowed people to actually put their crypto in a wallet for use outside of the platform. That is, until now.
On September 22, 2021, Robinhood announced a major shift in its crypto strategy. While users can continue to buy/sell cryptocurrency like normal, they'll now have the option of putting their coins into a secure wallet. Users can then transfer coins from their Robinhood wallet to another one, or transfer external coins to their Robinhood wallet so they can "trade those coins commission-free." Robinhood's also quite confident in the safety of these transfers, saying its crypto wallets feature "identity verification, multi-factor authentication, and email and phone verification to keep coins safe from hacks and other threats."
How To Sign Up For Robinhood Crypto Wallets
For anyone eager to get their own Robinhood crypto wallet, the good news is that a waitlist is open right now for anyone to join. From a desktop or smartphone, open the web browser and visit 'wenwallets.com.' New users should select the 'New Users,' button, wait for the next page to load, and then select 'Sign up' to start creating their account. For existing users, select 'Existing Users' from the signup page and enter your Robinhood account details to automatically join the waitlist.
Once that's all done, it's a matter of playing the waiting game. Crypto wallets will start rolling out to the initial 'alpha' group over the coming weeks. People on the waitlist will then gain access later in 2021, followed by crypto wallets opening up to everyone in early 2022. On that note, if someone joins the waitlist and wants to get ahead in line, they can do exactly that by referring friends. Referring one friend moves you ahead by 500 spots, and if another friend is referred, you move up another 250 spots. In other words, if someone's currently number 3,000 in line but then refers two friends, they're automatically moved up to number 2,250.
Even though it'll be a little while longer before Robinhood's crypto wallets are fully rolled out, this is still a considerable step forward. It's giving people proper ownership of their crypto, allowing transfers both in and out of Robinhood, and is backed by security measures that'll (hopefully) stand up to Robinhood's claims. If anyone's interested, it's a good idea to sign up for the waitlist ASAP.
Source: Robinhood