Robinhood launches its self-storage ‘Robinhood Wallet’ for crypto traders
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(Kitco News) – American financial company Robinhood announced the beta launch of Robinhood Wallet, a standalone app on the Apple Store that allows users to trade and exchange crypto without network fees.
According to Robinhood, the wallet is a Web3 wallet that will initially support the Polygon network as its first blockchain, with plans to add support for more networks in the future.
During the beta launch, the new iOS wallet will be made available to the first 10,000 users who joined the waiting list in May 2022.
Johann Kerbrat, chief technology officer at Robinhood Crypto, called the launch of the Robinhood Wallet beta “a significant step forward in our journey to make Robinhood the most trusted and simple crypto platform for customers.”
“Like we did with the stock market, Robinhood Wallet removes some of the complexity of web3 and DeFi to make crypto more accessible to everyone,” Kerbrat said.
The brokerage’s choice of Polygon as its preferred network is not surprising after the platform added support for on-chain deposits and withdrawals for Polygon’s MATIC token back in August.
The Polygon network also offers a higher level of scalability, faster transaction times and lower fees than many competing networks, along with a potent developer ecosystem.
The beta release will allow users to perform common tasks such as trading, rewards, storage and DApp-based yield farming of cryptocurrencies. Future versions of the wallet will include support for a nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace that is currently under development.
With the launch of the new app, Robinhood wants to copy with crypto what it did with stock trading.
During the beta test period, Circle’s USDC stablecoin will be the primary fiat-representative token on the app, and there will also be a reward center where users can collect rewards, including some initial MATIC tokens to create the wallet.
The Robinhood wallet also offers access to a larger selection of cryptos than is currently available on Robinhood’s main platform, with 25 to 30 tokens available during the beta according to Kerbrat. Once the trial is complete, the firm will also add support for NFTs.
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