US-based stock trading and investing major Robinhood has announced that the company is building a non-custodial wallet that will allow its customers to have total control of their crypto in Web 3. Robinhood said that this new multichain Web 3 wallet will launch as a standalone app. Customers will be able to hold the keys for their own crypto and access decentralised apps (dApps) to trade and swap crypto with no network fees, store non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and connect to NFT marketplaces, earn yield using their assets, and access a variety of crypto assets.
“At Robinhood, we believe that crypto is more than just an asset class. By offering the same low cost and great design that people have come to expect from Robinhood, our Web 3 wallet will make it easier for everyone to hold their own keys and experience all the opportunities that the open financial system has to offer,” Vlad Tenev, the co-founder and CEO of Robinhood, commented in a press release+Announces+Non-Custodial+Wallet/20090869.html) announcing the new wallet.
For now, Robinhood customers can join this non-custodial wallet by signing up for its waitlist. Its Beta program will be available later this summer, and Robinhood noted that the wallet is set to be deployed fully by the end of the year.
Robinhood has been trying its best over the past couple of years to be the go-to platform for crypto investors, regardless of the space, they’re interested in. In 2018 the project launched cryptocurrency trading, but without the ability to transfer tokens to external wallets. In 2021, the project unveiled plans to enable external withdrawals, a move that would allow users to on-ramp into the decentralised finance (DeFi) ecosystem through Robinhood.
With its new wallet, the company is leaning further into crypto and will be competing with existing non-custodial wallets. Previously, people would need to transfer their assets out of Robinhood to a wallet like Metamask in order to access DeFi. Now, people will be able to stay within the Robinhood ecosystem with more freedom in terms of crypto interaction.
