Robinhood to Launch Crypto Gift Feature
- The new feature will be made available to all Robinhood users, except in Nevada and Hawaii, right before the holiday season.
- It will allow users to choose one out of seven cryptocurrencies, and send as little as 1$ worth of the asset as gift to their loved ones.
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Popular trading app Robinhood will soon allow its users to send cryptocurrencies as gifts to friends and family over the holiday season, the company said in a blog post on 16 December.
According to the announcement, the new feature — called Crypto Gifts — will be made available to Robinhood users on 22 December, except to those in Hawaii and Nevada, where Robinhood Crypto is not available. Once launched, users will be able to send as little as $1 worth of crypto to their loved ones through a personalized digital gift card with special designs. The COO of Robinhood Crypto, Christine Brown, said in a statement:
“Crypto gifting is a great way for our customers to help remove the emotional and economic barrier of their friends and family taking their first step into crypto. It is also an easy and immediate gift for those that are already crypto fans.”
Users will be able to choose one of seven cryptocurrencies — including Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Dogecoin (DOGE) — to send as gifts. In order to ensure that the assets are not lost through this process, recipients will have a 14 days window to accept the gift before it is reverted back to the sender.
The gifts can be easily send directly to the recipient by sharing a link through email or text, clicking on which will redirect the person to the Robinhood app where it can be claimed. If the recipient is not a Robinhood user, they will need to create an account on the app before being able to claim their gift. It remains unclear if the feature will be available after the holiday season.
Crypto trading has become a significant source of revenue for Robinhood, which reported back in July that crypto was responsible for 17% of the company’s revenue during the first quarter of 2021. In order to make it even easier for its 22 million customers to interact with digital assets, Robinhood is currently testing a new crypto wallet feature, that is scheduled to launch in early 2022. The company has also partnered with blockchain analytics platform Chainalysis to meet regulatory compliance requirements ahead of its crypto wallet release.
- The U.S. Department of Justice has seized close to $470 million in Robinhood stock, and an additional $20 million in U.S. currency, as part of its criminal case against Sam Bankman-Fried.
- Lawyers for SBF argued last week that the Robinhood shares were bought legitimately by SBF, using money borrowed from Alameda, and that he was relying on them to fund his defense.
Former CEO of FTX Sam Bankman-Fried leaves the Federal Court in New York after pleading not guilty, 3 January, 2022.
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- Lawyers for SBF are seeking to block debtors from taking control over $450 million in Robinhood shares, arguing that SBF was relying on his stake to fund his criminal defense.
- Another argument was that SBF had legitimately bought the shares using money borrowed from Alameda Research, one of the few loans that was well documented in the company.
- Robinhood’s crypto wallet, which was rolled out to 2 million users, will not support Ethereum-based services like ERC-20 tokens and NFTs.
- The trading app also revealed it had plans to integrate the Bitcoin Lightning Network, reducing the time and fees associated with transfers.