Robinhood to Roll Out Beta Version of Digital Wallet in January 2022

Robinhood, the US-based crypto trading app, has revealed that thousands of its users are awaiting the launch of its digital wallet, which will be released in its beta version in January 2022. In a blog post, the company has officially informed that the Alpha testing programme for its digital wallets has wrapped up. The development comes three months after Robinhood first announced that it was working on launching a new digital wallet service for its customers in the US.

“Today, more than 1.6 million people have signed up for wallets. While we're eager to roll-out new products as quickly as possible, building wallets and connecting our millions of customers “on-chain” (connecting with the blockchain) is a big undertaking,” Robinhood's blog post read.

The upcoming wallet will support the deposit and withdrawal of cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, Ether, and Dogecoin.

Robinhood claims to have embedded security features around identity verification and authentication to its upcoming offering amid crypto-related cybercrimes picking up pace in the US, as well as in other parts of the world.

“We will be rolling out some additional security features for crypto transactions. These include multi-factor authentication in-app, so we know it's you when you initiate a transfer, and transaction checks to better understand the risk of where coins are being sent,” the blog added.

While acknowledging that the crypto space went mainstream in 2021, Robinhood said its survey showed that most people are still familiarising themselves with the world of crypto assets.

“Our survey showed us 66 percent of customers that don't currently have a crypto wallet expect to have one address for all their transactions. This is not the case, as each network will have a different address to send and receive coins when conducting on-chain, so each coin will have its own wallet address,” the post noted.

This year, Robinhood lined up an array of new services and features.

On September 13, for instance, the company launched a feature to allow users to regularly invest in their favourite coins — totally free of commission with as little as $1 (roughly Rs. 73.66) on a schedule of their choice.

The year, however, did bring some unpleasant surprises for the crypto and stock trading app.

In October, Robinhood servers were breached by an unauthorised third party. At the time, the personal details of millions of its users were accessed by cyber criminals. An investigation had been launched into the case, further details of which remain unknown.

The beta version of Robinhood's digital wallet will be made available by mid-January.