Robinhood rolls out wallets to 2M waitlisted users, plans to integrate Lightning

Cryptocurrency and stock trading app Robinhood will roll out its digital wallet feature for 2 million additional users.

In a Thursday announcement at the Bitcoin 2022 Conference in Miami, Robinhood chief product officer Aparna Chennapragada said eligible customers who had been on the waitlist for the digital wallet — more than two million people — can now send and receive cryptocurrencies. In addition, the platform is planning to integrate the Bitcoin Lightning Network to reduce the time and cost of transactions as well as their carbon footprint.

According to Robinhood, the crypto wallets will not be available to users in Hawaii, Nevada or New York “due to local regulations.” The platform had been testing its digital wallet feature since September 2021, completing its first alpha transfer using Dogecoin (DOGE) in November 2021 and launching the beta version for tens of thousands of users in January 2022.

The reaction from many Robinhood users on social media after a seven-month wait seemed to be mostly positive, though some pointed out that the wallet will not support Ethereum (ETH)-based services like nonfungible tokens and ERC-20 tokens. According to the firm’s FAQ page, any NFTs or unsupported tokens sent to a Robinhood Ethereum address may be lost.

Related: Robinhood partners with Chainalysis ahead of crypto wallet launch

Robinhood reported $48 million worth of transaction-based revenue from crypto in the fourth quarter of 2021, a roughly 6% drop compared to $51 million in the third quarter. In addition, the share price of Robinhood (HOOD) on the Nasdaq has declined since the firm went public in July 2021, falling from an all-time high price of $70.39 on Aug. 4 to $12.17 at the time of publication — a drop of more than 82%.

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