Robin Hood will launch an unmanaged cryptocurrency wallet later this year

Its upcoming wallet will allow users to have their own private key

More than a month after Robin Hood publicly released its first cryptocurrency wallet, the company has announced that it is developing a second one. The new wallet will be unmanaged, allowing users to keep the necessary private key separately to control their funds on the blockchain. This means that if the system fails, users will not rely on Robin Hood, but if their private key is lost, they will also risk losing their funds completely

Robin Hood said that the new wallet will be provided as a stand-alone application, but hopes it will be like its main service ” Have the same simple and accessible design “. The wallet will provide the ability to store and trade cryptocurrencies, including many ” No gas fee ” Blockchain network and will support NFTs and defi (decentralized Finance) protocols

” If you don’t have a private key, you don’t have a token “

Although Robin Hood is best known as the stock trading platform related to last year’s meme stock trading boom, the purchase of cryptocurrency has become an increasingly important part of its business. Coindesk reported at the time that when it announced the full listing of its cryptocurrency wallet last month, the company said that bitcoin was the largest asset that its users often purchased in 2022.

Before launching the first wallet, Robinhood allowed its users to buy and sell cryptocurrency on its platform, but did not allow consumption. In fact, it was only allowed to be used as a speculative asset.

Managed wallets, such as those released by Robin Hood earlier this year, are generally considered to provide a more friendly management function for the cryptocurrency world, where there is less risk of losing assets due to private keys. But among cryptocurrency enthusiasts, ” No private key, no token ” This sentence has become a popular criticism of hosted wallets. Cryptocurrency natives believe that you can really control your digital assets only when you hold the private key alone. The addition of Robinhood’s new unmanaged wallet should allow it to serve both customers.

Robin Hood said it would be in ” This summer ” Launch a beta version of its unmanaged wallet and invite anyone interested in trying to register on its waiting list. Robin Hood plans to fully launch the product sometime before the end of this year.

After experiencing difficulties in the first quarter, Robin Hood CEO Vlad tenev announced the plan at the permissionless defi conference in Florida today.

In the first quarter of this year, Robin Hood’s net income fell 43% to $299 million, of which the revenue from cryptocurrency transactions fell 39% to $54 million (which means that cryptocurrency transactions accounted for about 18% of Robin Hood’s total revenue by the end of March).

Since the end of the first quarter of this year, Robin Hood has been actively developing its cryptocurrency department to attract users and increase transaction volume. Over the past month, the exchange has launched a hosted cryptocurrency wallet to its users, listed four new tokens, including Solana and Shiba Inu, and announced that it will integrate with bitcoin lightning network to achieve faster and lower cost transactions.

Johann kerbrat, chief technology officer of Robin Hood, said in an interview that 22 million customers currently interact with its cryptocurrency products. By hosting the wallet, Robin Hood holds the private key on behalf of the user, which means that users can invest in cryptocurrency by tracking their price changes, but they can’t trade directly with their cryptocurrency funds.

Coinbase, another cryptocurrency exchange loved by retail investors, also provides two types of wallets in two different applications — managed and unmanaged. The latter is coinbase wallet. Coinbase wallet is free to use, but it does transfer individual transaction costs to users.

Kerbrat hopes today’s announcement will encourage DAPP developers and protocols to integrate with Robin Hood’s wallet.

Kerbrat said: ” We still believe that the main reason why many people don’t use unmanaged wallets is that it’s too complex. Therefore, we don’t want to just do a project — we actually want to really help retail investors use unmanaged wallets and integrate dapps functions.

Last week, Robinhood’s share price soared more than 20% after FTX, a cryptocurrency exchange run by billionaire Sam bankman fried, disclosed that it had bought a 7.6% stake in the company. As of midday US Eastern time on Tuesday, the trading price of the stock was about $10 per share, which was still significantly lower than its 52 week high of $85.