Robinhood announces a new, non-custodial crypto wallet for investors to store digital assets including NFTs

Robinhood announced Tuesday that it’s releasing a non-custodial cryptocurrency wallet in a stand-alone app. The app and wallet will allow investors to curate and hold NFTs, plus trade and swap cryptocurrencies with no network fees.

According to Robinhood, in addition to featuring no network fees, the wallet will allow investors to earn yields on their assets. The new app will offer a similar experience to Robinhood’s current app, only investors will now hold their own wallet key and be able to access decentralized apps where they can trade and swap crypto. The app will also allow investors to connect to NFT marketplaces. 

Perhaps the most noteworthy feature is the lack of network fees. Cryptocurrency networks, such as Solana, Ethereum, or Avalanche, all charge fees when sending or receiving cryptocurrency on their respective networks. 

Network fees can range from exorbitant to minor, depending on the network’s trading volume. Ethereum, for example, is somewhat notorious for having substantial gas fees – the cost of validating transactions on the ETH network. So having Robinhood cover those fees for investors could be a huge boon. However, the company has not yet announced which cryptocurrency networks will be supported by the wallet.

Currently, Robinhood investors can purchase cryptocurrency through the Robinhood app, but the assets are held in custodial by the company. The new non-custodial wallet will give the control back to the investors by literally handing them the key to their individual wallets. Wallet keys are unique, 64-digit codes used to access crypto wallets that can’t be recovered if they’re ever lost.

The wallet is a hot wallet, meaning it’s a web-based mobile wallet, as opposed to a cold wallet. Cold wallets are physical devices that must be plugged into a computer and accessed using a PIN, making them a more secure choice for holding digital assets.

“By offering the same low cost and great design that people have come to expect from Robinhood, our web3 wallet will make it easier for everyone to hold their own keys and experience all the opportunities that the open financial system has to offer,” Vlad Tenev, co-founder and CEO of Robinhood, said in the company’s blog post.

Interested investors can sign up for the waitlist. The company said Beta invites will be sent out later this summer with the product being made available to everyone else by the end of the year.