Personal Finance
Robinhood Cryptocurrency Wallet Overview
For years — pretty much from the moment Robinhood introduced support for cryptocurrencies — users have clamored for a way to send their assets off-platform via wallets. Finally, after literal years, the app began rolling out such a function in late 2021, with the roll-out continuing into the new year. Now, in addition to buying and selling select crypto assets, Robinhood customers can also send and receive coins. But how does the feature actually work? Let’s take a look at how Robinhood Crypto Wallets operate, including my personal experience using them.
What are Robinhood Cryptocurrency Wallets and How Do They Work?
What are Robinhood Cryptocurrency Wallets and How Do They Work?
Opting into wallets and accessing yours
Before you can get starting with sending and receiving crypto on Robinhood, you’ll need to opt into the feature. Furthermore, there are a couple of steps you’ll need to take as part of this process — namely, confirming your identity and setting up two-factor authentication (2FA).
First, to confirm your identity, you’ll need to submit a photo of your government-issued ID. Then, you’ll take a photo of yourself to submit as well. While we’re on a confirmation spree, you’ll then be asked to confirm your email and phone number as you set up 2FA. You’ll also need to download an authenticator app such as Google Authenticator or Authy (I use the latter, personally). If you’re not familiar, these apps will generate confirmation codes on a regular basis, allowing you to — you guessed it — authenticate transaction requests without relying on SMS or email.
Once you have wallets enabled, when you tap a supported currency, you’ll see “Send” and “Receive” buttons below the “Your position” section. In other words, you may need to scroll down a bit before you’ll find these options (meanwhile, “Buy” and “Sell” are still far more prominent). Keep in mind that wallets are specific to the asset you’ll be sending or receiving, so double-check that you’ve selected the right option. If you don’t, your assets could be lost.
Supported currencies
Speaking of supported currencies, what type of crypto does Robinhood currently allow users to buy, sell, send, and receive? As of June 2022, the list includes:
- Bitcoin (BTC)
- Bitcoin Cash (BCH)
- Bitcoin SV (BSV)
- Dogecoin (DOGE)
- Ethereum (ETH)
- Ethereum Classic (ETC)
- Litecoin (LTC)
- Solana (SOL)
Interestingly, while Robinhood does support buying and selling for Shibu Inu (SHIB), Polygon (MATIC), and Compound (COMP) it does not yet have wallets for these assets.
Fees
When it comes to transferring crypto, you’ll be subject to network fees — also known as gas fees or miner fees. These fees do vary, with demand, coin type, and other factors playing a role in what you’ll be charged. If you’re receiving crypto on Robinhood, these costs will be deducted before reaching your account while, if sending, you’ll see how much network fees currently are before you complete your transaction. Notably, in most cases, the network fee will be deducted from your account so that the full request transfer amount is sent. However, if you’re emptying your wallet, then the fee will be deducted from the amount you end up sending.
Receiving crypto
While some might see the benefit of opening a Robinhood Crypto Wallet being the ability to send their crypto off-platform, others may want to send their assets to Robinhood for easy liquidation. For those folk, we’ll start with a look at how to receive funds on the platform. This process starts with selecting the crypto type you want to receive and either scanning the QR code or copying your wallet address.
In my case, I decided to send the Sats I earned on Fold over to Robinhood. To do this, I tapped the “Recieve” button and was able to copy over the wallet’s address. Soon after Fold initiated the transfer, I got an alert from Robinhood informing me that I had incoming BTC. As it notes, the process typically takes about an hour for it to confirm. Meanwhile, you can follow the progress as the transaction goes through Confirmations and then a Final Check. Once all of this was completed, I got another notification letting me know that my crypto was now available in my account. Voila.
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Sending crypto
As you might imagine, sending crypto via Robinhood wallets is similar to receiving, but in reverse. To test out this half of the equation, I decided to send a bit of Bitcoin over to my Cash App account. After selecting “Send,” Robinhood opened my camera to scan a QR code by default. However, I chose to enter the wallet address manually instead.
When it comes to selecting how much you want to transfer, you can express your transaction in USD or in the asset you’re sending. In either case, the conversion will display below the amount. Alternatively, you can also hit “Send all” if you want to empty your wallet.
This next step is where the aforementioned fees come in. When testing this feature, I tried two different transfer amounts: $2 and $20 worth of Bitcoin. In both cases, the network fee came out to the same $0.39 (again, though, this will fluctuate). Either way, this fee estimate was clearly disclosed before you submit. But, before that, there’s one last step as you’ll need to use your authenticator app to retrieve the code and confirm your transaction.
Just like with the process of receiving, Robinhood allows you to view the progress of your transfer. This time around, the three steps were Submission, Processing, and Transaction ID. Sure enough, my Sats arrived on my Cash App at the same time Robinhood said the transaction was completed.
A word of warning
Something that Robinhood points out is that, while you may see a wallet address for funds you sent to another destination and assume you can use it to send crypto back the other way, that’s actually not the case. Instead, they recommend going into the app to find and copy and wallet address before initiating any new transfers. Otherwise, you may end up losing your money.
After receiving your crypto
Once your inbound crypto transfer fully clears, you’ll be able to sell it as you normally would — which is why I think this strategy could be useful if you want to easily turn your crypto holdings into fiat. In fact, if you have one of Robinhood’s debit cards (formerly Cash Management and now the Robinhood Cash Card), you could conceivably receive crypto and spend it “normally” within a relatively short amount of time. Then again, the volatility of cryptocurrencies coupled with the gas fees might not make this the best plan of action overall. Still, it’s definitely nice to have the option.
There’s no question that Robinhood adding crypto wallets at long last was a major step forward for the app. However, the company has even more up its sleeve as it’s now announced a separate app offering non-custodial crypto wallets is in the works. In the meantime, hopefully this walkthrough gives you a better idea of how to use Robinhood Crypto Wallets to easily transfer crypto assets.
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