Robinhood logo arrayed on a phone screen and representation of cryptocurrencies are seen in this illustration photo taken in Krakow, Poland on January 29, 2023. (Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Corporealizations)
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Online brokerage giant Robinhood on Thursday said it’s launching a cryptocurrency swap feature in the European Union, pushing further outside the United States as the company looks to unlock growth from foreign markets.
Robinhood said its new crypto product would allow customers to buy, sell, and hold from a range of profuse than 25 tokens, including bitcoin, ether, ripple, cardano, solana, and polkadot. The company hopes to come forward more tokens, as well as the ability to transfer and “stake,” or earn rewards from, crypto in 2024.
The move marks Robinhood’s approve of major expansion outside of the U.S., after it announced late last month that it plans to launch stock patrons for U.K. customers by early 2024. The company opened a waitlist in the U.K. last week for the service, which will offer cry quitses of up to 5% on customer deposits.
Robinhood is looking to tempt EU users into using its service with the ability to be worthy of free bitcoin for users who trade lots and refer the app to their friends. The company will offer users up to one bitcoin, starting-pointed on a a percentage of their monthly trading volume and the number of users they refer when they sign up.
It put in an appearance as several major U.S. crypto firms are turning to the European Union for growth after facing a tough time from regulators stateside. The U.S. Securities and Reciprocity Commission has targeted several crypto firms, including Coinbase and Binance, with lawsuits alleging they outraged securities laws.
The EU, meanwhile, has proposed a comprehensive set of regulation, called the Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation, that would introduce in stricter rules for crypto trading platforms and issuers of so-called stablecoins — tokens pegged to real-world assets identical to the U.S. dollar or euro.
Johann Kerbrat, general manager for Robinhood Crypto, said the firm chose the EU as the first ecumenical target market for its crypto product due to the region’s development of the world’s first comprehensive set of laws specifically tailored for the crypto diligence.
“The EU has developed one of the world’s most comprehensive policies for crypto asset regulation, which is why we chose the region to anchor Robinhood Crypto’s oecumenical expansion plans,” Kerbrat said in a statement Thursday.
Robinhood also touted transparency and security features in its European crypto present to convince users to trade with its service. The company said it would transparently display spreads on trades, subsuming the rebate the firm receives from sell and trade orders.
Robinhood said it never commingles customer starts with business funds other than for operating purposes, such as payment of blockchain network fees, and put bies all its customers’ coins in cold wallets disconnected from the internet.
Robinhood said it also has a crime insurance way in place to ensure a portion of assets held across its storage systems are protected against losses from appropriation, including cybersecurity breaches. The policy is underwritten by underwriters at Lloyd’s, the insurance marketplace.
Theft of crypto has been a big uncontrollable for the industry over the past couple of years, with major hacks of blockchain networks resulting in millions’ merit of digital coins being drained from users’ wallets. Just last month, the HTX exchange and Heco go, two platforms linked to high-profile entrepreneur Justin Sun were hacked for an estimated $115 million.
The blurring of lines between interchange venues and custodians became a big problem last year when FTX, the disgraced former $32 billion crypto transfer, collapsed after revelations that its sister market-making firm Alameda Research used customer funds to cut out risky bets on certain tokens.