Self-custody wallet by Robinhood: a head start which has potential

Robinhood Wallet, which supports both the Polygon and Ethereum networks, is now available to all iOS customers worldwide. It is notable that the self-custody wallet had a waitlist of over 1 million users.

According to the Robinhood blogpost, “Robinhood Wallet is a multi-chain, self-custody, Web3 wallet that allows users to own and swap crypto, and connect to a wide range of decentralized applications (dapps). Robinhood Wallet combines the simple and intuitive design that users have come to expect from Robinhood with powerful tools that push the boundaries of a typical wallet to support the next generation of Web3 users. It gives users full control over their crypto, meaning only they hold and maintain the private keys to their assets. “

Currently the wallet supports the most widely used in the crypto market and the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem tokens, like include Uniswap (UNI), Compound (COMP), Polygon (MATIC), Shiba Inu (SHIB), Solana (SOL), USDC, 50+ ERC tokens and others. Users can access non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on Ethereum and Polygon and store their digital assets from their collections on the crypto wallet. Any transaction conducted with Polygon will have zero fees to incentivize users to explore the Web3 and DeFi ecosystem. Robinhood currently doesn’t charge service fees on token swaps, although it says that the fees are subject to change.

In addition, the company has been working on making this product user-friendly and intuitive for people with all degrees of technical and crypto experience and “support the next generation of Web3 users.” Robinhood will offer users a 5 USDC reward for sending $10 in crypto to their wallets or 1 USDC after sending $10 from a crypto exchange.

According to the official announcement, the trading platform’s crypto wallet has received very positive user feedback. Thus, Johann Kerbrat, General Manager of Robinhood Crypto said:

“Users have told us they love how accessible and easy to use the app is, and that they really enjoy the ability to self-custody their digital assets and swap with no network fees on Polygon. They also told us they want access to more coins on more chains, which is why we’ve quickly added support for Ethereum. While we recognize it’s been a tumultuous few months in the crypto space, we remain committed to our mission to make Robinhood the most trusted, lowest cost, and easiest to use on-ramp to crypto.”

The blog post also says “Currently, you can only use one wallet address in the app at a time. Multiple addresses are not yet supported”, which suggests that this feature may be available in future.

The users which already have an Ethereum or Polygon wallet can import it to Robinhood Wallet by using their existing wallet’s secret recovery phrase. Other available options are: recovering your wallet from iCloud and transferring tokens from a Robinhood Crypto account to fund Robinhood Wallet.

Robinhood is aware of the potential risk associated with transacting with cryptocurrencies. Therefore, iOS users must set up multiple security layers, including a Face/Touch ID and a PIN, and generate a seed phrase with their private keys.

The self-custody wallet has been “already downloaded in over 130 countries,” per an official announcement. It also says that the app version for Android operating system will be launched some time in 2023, but any specific date hasn’t been provided. However, users can join the waitlist and receive notifications when the wallet launches. In the meantime, the company is also planning feature that include a web3 browser, in-app rewards and support for more coins.

As the newly launched crypto wallet is being successfully promoted, Robinhood itself is going through a very unpleasant situation. The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) met with the American trading platform Robinhood two months before issuing a subpoena to the exchange. The information was revealed earlier when another edition of the SEC Chair Gary Gensler’s public calendar was published. Two months later, Robinhood received a subpoena from the SEC shortly after the FTX collapse, as revealed in the company’s latest 10-K filing with the regulatory institution. Numerous individuals have questioned why the SEC could not provide clarity or guidance to Robinhood during the meeting in October.

Replying to all these complaints of a lack of clarity, Gensler ensures that the crypto industry already knows what to do to comply with regulations, but some entities are willingly violating the obligations.

Hopefully, this process will not affect the further development of Robinhood Wallet, and users will eventually get all the promised features and the Android version.