Robinhood targets expanded cryptocurrency trading business

Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev has said the company is working towards increasing its cryptocurrency trading service.

In a fireside chat posted on the broker’s YouTube account on Thursday, Tenev discussed plans to upscale its workforce and add more crypto trading pairs. Detailing the ongoing plans, the Robinhood chief remarked:

“As much as people are bugging me on that on social media, I'm bugging our crypto team and our software engineers. We're going to try and get that done as fast as possible. And we'll see. We might add some new coins along the way.”

In addition to increasing its crypto trading catalog, Tenev also touched on the possibility of a Robinhood cryptocurrency wallet. However, Tenev said that the firm was proceeding with caution on that front, insisting that such a feature would need to be tested extensively before rolling it out to users.

As previously reported by Cointelegraph, Robinhood added 6 million new crypto customers in the first two months of 2021 — more than 15 times the average figure recorded in 2020.

With an expanded crypto trading catalog could come even more patronage and Tenev says Robinhood is already working towards putting the necessary modalities in place to handle the increased traffic.

Apart from increasing its staff size, Robinhood is also reportedly upscaling its service availability and customer support infrastructure. Indeed, crypto exchanges have routinely suffered outages during periods of peak market activity.

Regarding the GameStop trading controversy, Tenev acknowledged the bad publicity for the company occasioned by the incident saying Robinhood may require a few months to recover from the fallout.

According to the Robinhood CEO, the brokerage firm is doing its part to set the record straight.

Robinhood’s crypto expansion plan comes on the heels of the news that eToro — one of its competitors — is pursuing a public listing on the Nasdaq. The firm has reached an agreement with SPAC outfit Fintech V towards a $10 billion merger expected to be concluded in Q2 2021.