Robinhood Launches Crypto Wallet Beta for Bitcoin, Ethereum and Dogecoin Transfers

The company has long promised the feature was coming.

By Jeff Benson

For months, executives at trading app company Robinhood have been promising that cryptocurrency wallets were coming.

Today, they're finally here—well, for the first 1,000 people on the waitlist, that is.

Robinhood announced today that its beta program has gone live, with plans to scale up to 10,000 users by March. According to a blog post, the wallets "will enable Robinhood customers to send and receive their crypto from Robinhood to external crypto wallets."

Until now, those who trade cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Dogecoin via the app have been limited to buying and selling. Robinhood essentially held the cryptocurrency on their behalf, giving users exposure to price movements but not really exposure to a decentralized blockchain ecosytem where people control their own finances.

With the new functionality, wallet holders will be able to buy, say, Ethereum on Robinhood and transfer it to another wallet so they can swap assets on decentralized exchanges such as Uniswap or engage in any number of DeFi applications.

For this reason, Robinhood said the new feature will "fully connect Robinhood crypto holders to the greater blockchain ecosystem for the very first time."

That said, there are limits, as Robinhood has taken to espousing a "safety first" approach toward investment in crypto assets. For instance, during the beta run, testers will be limited to 10 withdrawals totaling no more than $2,999.

Hey, it's a start.