FinTech News
Robinhood Adds Support for Four New Crypto Assets Including SHIB
At long last, Robinhood is bringing more cryptocurrency options to its platform. Today, the app announced that, for the first time in years, it was adding support for new crypto assets. Now, customers can buy and sell Compound (COMP), Polygon (MATIC), Solana (SOL), and Shiba Inu (SHIB). These assets join previously supported coins including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, and more.
Of the four newly-added assets, Shiba Inu is easily the most anticipated. In fact, looking at Robinhood’s social media posts over the past several months, the majority of replies (regardless of the post’s content) come from the self-proclaimed “SHIBArmy.” In turn, to celebrate the arrival of SHIB, Robinhood launched a giveaway on Twitter where the first 10,000 users to quote tweet the announcement along with their username would receive $10 of the asset.
The news of these additional assets comes as Robinhood continues to roll out its previously most-requested feature: crypto wallets. With this functionality, customers are able to send and receive supported crypto assets instead of needing to trade them on the platform. However, at this time, the ability to deposit and send any of the four new assets via wallets is not yet available, but this capability will be added soon.
In a blog post announcing the update, Robinhood’s Chief Brokerage Officer Steve Quirk said of the additions, “We’re excited to add more choices for our customers as we work to make Robinhood the best place to invest in crypto.” Quirk continued, “As a safety-first company, we have a rigorous framework in place to help us evaluate assets for listing, and we remain committed to providing a safe and educational crypto platform.”
To that latter point, as Yahoo reports, Robinhood CFO Jason Warnick previously spoke to the reason why the company had not been quicker to add assets, stating, “It’s not lost on us that our customers and others would like to see us add more coins. We’re a highly regulated company in a highly regulated industry, and we think it’s important that we get a bit more clarity from regulators.”
Overall, the addition of these new assets shows that Robinhood is committed to continuing its expansion despite headwinds and is deftly aware of what its customers want… even if they may be slow to implement changes users clamor for. On that note, however, unlike previous updates to the platform that have rolled out gradually, the fact that these new assets are instantly available will certainly be welcomed news — even if those looking to import or export these coins from their Robinhood account may need to wait a bit longer to do so. Of course, this is also a win for Compound, Polygon, Solana, and Shiba Inu, with a spotlight surely set to shine on these assets as the crypto market continues to evolve.
