- Customers on Robinhood's 2 million-plus waitlist now have crypto wallets, except for those in New York, Hawaii, and Nevada
- The crypto wallets allow customers to send and receive cryptocurrencies and even buy NFTs, the trading platform said Thursday.
- Robinhood will add the Bitcoin Lightning Network to its platform for "off-chain" transactions.
Robinhood has finally rolled out crypto wallets to the eligible customers on its waitlist, the trading platform said at Thursday's Bitcoin conference.
Almost 2 million customers on Robinhood's WenWallets waitlist will be able to send and receive cryptocurrencies, and also buy non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
The wallets are not available for customers in US states New York, Hawaii, and Nevada due to local regulations, the company said.
"With Wallets, customers will have full access to their crypto, and can use it to participate in the crypto ecosystem—by tipping on social media, paying for NFTs and more," the company said in a press release, adding there will no fee to withdraw crypto from Robinhood.
Robinhood will add the bitcoin lightning network to its platform, an open-source layer-2 protocol that speeds up transactions and makes them cheaper. Lightning also helps cut the carbon footprints of transactions because bitcoin miners don't need to validate it.
"We are also working to add the ability to transact on the Bitcoin Lightning Network, so customers can send & receive BTC in seconds, for pennies instead of dollars," tweeted Chief Product Officer Aparna Chennapragada.
Robinhood announced the 2022 release of its wallet in September, when it opened its waitlist and started testing.
Robinhood is popular among retail investors and benefited from a surge in crypto activity last year. It introduced crypto trading services back in 2018.
"Our goal is to make Robinhood the most trusted and easiest to use crypto platform," Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev said.
Robinhood's cryptocurrency revenue for 2021 increased to $419 million from $27 million in 2020.