A website for stock trading known as Robinhood recently made public its ambitions to develop a brand new digital Web3 wallet. This wallet would be the first of its kind to enable clients to store and connect their NFTs.
Users of the platform will be able to keep the keys to their cryptocurrency, earn yield, trade or exchange cryptocurrency, including NFTs (non-fungible tokens), and do so without paying network fees if they use the new non-custodial “Robinhood 3” wallet that the company introduced on Tuesday. The announcement was made in a news statement. The company also said that it will not charge any transaction fees going forward.
During his presentation at Blockwork’s Permissionless event on Tuesday in West Palm Beach, Florida, Vlad Tenev, co-founder and CEO of Robinhood, stated that the goal was to simplify the sometimes “clunky” and “cumbersome” architecture that is present in decentralized banking, Web3, and non-custodial wallets. Tenev made these comments about the architecture.
Before he showed a live audience a promotional video of Robinhood’s wallet, Tenev stated, “There has to be a way to get all of the security and privacy advantages of self custody with the low-cost ease and mobile-first design that you’re used to with TradFi products.” Tenev was referring to the benefits of self-custody in regards to security and privacy.
This is a significant advancement for the trading platform, which previously only allowed users to acquire and store crypto assets inside their own Robinhood trading accounts. This new feature is a significant step forward for the service. Due to the rising popularity of cryptocurrencies, the app said in February 2021 that it was considering the possibility of enabling transactions that took place on other platforms.
In the end, Robinhood fell into the demand from the general public and released a test version of its very first digital wallet in September. This wallet was made accessible to the first 1,000 customers in January. Recent developments have seen that number recently reach two million individuals, after a protracted period of waiting.
At this time, you can only use the wallet to store bitcoin, bitcoin cash, bitcoin SV, dogecoin, ether, ether classic, and litecoin. Its functionality is currently limited to these seven commodities.
Tenev, the CEO of Robinhood, was quoted in a press release as saying, “At Robinhood, we believe that bitcoin is more than merely an asset class.” “Everyone will be able to hold their keys and make use of all the advantages that the open financial system has to offer, thanks to our web3 wallet,”
Even though Tenev’s comment makes it very clear that Robinhood’s perspective on cryptocurrencies has evolved over the last several years, no explanation was offered for the company’s two-pronged crypto wallet strategy.
Blockworks attempted to get in touch with Robinhood on this matter but did not get a response before the time of publication.
The latest version of the app’s Web3 wallet, much like the app’s first iteration of its crypto wallet, will be made available to a limited number of users who have signed up for a waitlist and will participate in the Beta program at the beginning of the summer.
In addition to this, Robinhood said that the company wants to make the product widely available to all of its customers before the year is up.
