Robinhood Rolls Out Bitcoin Withdrawals
On January 20th, 2022, the Beta program went live for the first 1,000 users who signed up. Robinhood released a statement on their blog announcing the full implementation for a crypto wallet. After the testing phase, the company plans to roll out the feature to 10,000 more users by March and then eventually for everyone on the platform.
Robinhood Markets, Inc. is a financial services company that began offering stock trades with zero commission fees and no minimum account deposit. The company services a demographic of investors who appreciate a simple and reliable trading platform. Other trading platforms eventually had to offer zero commission fees or reduced fees in order to compete with Robinhood’s business model.
In February of 2018, Robinhood began offering Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to trade. Select users were able to test the trading features until it was eventually offered to all customers. In a tweet, Robinhood mentioned their full intention to allow Bitcoin and cryptocurrency withdrawals.
Beta testers will also be limited to 10 transactions with a total withdrawal amount of $2,999 per day.
Robinhood’s statement includes, “Beta testers will help us test core functionality and provide critical feedback to inform the final version of the product. Over the duration of the Beta program, we will finalize the send and receive flows, add delightful QR scanning experiences, improve the transaction history interface, and add block explorer support to provide more insights into their on-chain transactions.”
The Importance of self-custody
An integral part of the Bitcoin ethos is the ability to self-custody Bitcoin on a dedicated device or method that is not connected to the internet. The purpose of self-custody or owning the keys to a person’s Bitcoin is to ensure that the funds are safe from hackers as well as the exchanges themselves. Robinhood aims to deliver on their promise for a secure wallet by including two-factor authentication (2FA) for Bitcoin and cryptocurrency transactions.
2FA decreases the risk of storing funds on exchanges because a bad actor would need the user’s email, password, and cell phone in order to send funds to their own external wallets.
Once a user’s Bitcoin funds are sent to an external wallet, it becomes the sole responsibility of the user to make sure that they store the private keys in a safe and secure location.