Robinhood extends Web3 wallet support to bitcoin, dogecoin

Users of Robinhood’s self-custody Web3 wallet can now use the Bitcoin and Dogecoin networks to custody, send and receive crypto, the investing platform revealed Wednesday.

The company first rolled out the wallet for select iOS customers in September 2022 — noting at the time that Robinhood Wallet would use Polygon as its first blockchain. The offering went live on iOS devices across 130 companies in March.

In those six months since, Robinhood has “heard loud and clear that people want access to more coins on more chains,” the company said in a Wednesday blog post.

After launching Robinhood Wallet with custody, send and receive support for Polygon and Ethereum,it added support on layer-2s Arbitrum and Optimism, before the Wednesday unveiling of Bitcoin and Dogecoin.

In addition to adding bitcoin and dogecoin network support for all users, Robinhood is enabling in-app swaps on the Ethereum network. These are available to select users for more than 200 tokens starting Wednesday. The platform said it will make them available to everyone in the coming weeks.

Previously, users of Robinhood’s wallet could only swap crypto on the Polygon network via decentralized exchange aggregator 0x API.

Robinhood Wallet users are able to swap without holding ether (ETH), as network fees are automatically deducted from the tokens they already hold, the company said.

“With Robinhood Wallet we stripped away many of the complexities of DeFi and the broader Web3 ecosystem, and reduced some of the challenges and barriers to entry for everyday people,” Johann Kerbrat, general manager of Robinhood Crypto, said in a statement.

The product expansion comes after the company launched Robinhood Connect in April — a way for certain US users to buy and transfer crypto to and from their Web3 wallet.

The company said in the Wednesday blog post it is “actively working to broaden access to other low-cost, fast and secure [layer-2] chains that users have asked for.”