(Reuters) – Robinhood Markets Inc is rolling out crypto wallets to a 1,000 users, allowing them to send and receive cryptocurrencies through their brokerage accounts, the company said in a blog post on Thursday.
The Menlo Park-based online brokerage had laid out plans to begin testing cryptocurrency wallets last year, with the aim of a broader rollout in 2022.
Out of nearly 1.6 million people on a waitlist for the crypto wallet, the top 1,000 selected can now exchange their crypto from Robinhood with external crypto wallets.
The new feature also connects holders of the digital asset to the blockchain ecosystem.
Beta testers will have a daily limit of $2,999 in total withdrawals and 10 transactions, and will need to enable two-factor authentication, the company said.
Robinhood, which benefited from a boom in retail trading during the pandemic, expects to expand the program to 10,000 customers by March.
Its customers have long asked for crypto wallets, which allow broader participation in blockchain-based ecosystems, such as buying virtual assets like non-fungible tokens (NTFs) on the Ethereum network.
The company is slated to report fourth-quarter earnings on Jan. 27.
(Reporting by Mehnaz Yasmin in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath)
