Renowned Cryptocurrency and stock trading platform, Robinhood has unveiled the Beta launching of its web3 wallet. The platform confirmed the development in a Tuesday Twitter post on its verified handle. According to Robinhood, the self-custody web3 wallet will feature Polygon (MATIC) as its first supported blockchain.
Notably, its beta release enable users to carry out common tasks. The tasks, as reported, include trading, rewards, storage and dApp-based yield farming of cryptocurrencies. Additionally, Robinhood revealed that it picked Polygon as the wallet’s first blockchain because of its “scalability, speed, low network fees and a robust developer ecosystem.” Meanwhile, it still intend to extend the compatibility of the wallet to other blockchains.
More so, Robinhood says it unveiled the beta version of the wallet on iOS. It intends to make it readily accessible to the first 10,000 users who joined the waitlist on May 2022. The crypto trading platform added that more than a million users have already signed up for the waitlist.
As reported, the self-custody wallet by Robinhood enables users to trade and swap cryptocurrencies without network fees. The crypto trading platform aims to integrate iterations on the wallet in the future. One of such interations according to Robinhood will enable the wallet to support nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace.
Johann Kerbrat, CTO of Robinhood reacted to the development. He said, “like we did with the stock market, Robinhood Wallet strips away some of the complexities of web3 and DeFi to make crypto more accessible to everyone.”
Robinhood enduring the implications of poor market conditions
Worth noting that Robinhood is among the list of crypto protocols ravaged by the prevailing poor market conditions. In August, it decided to layoff over 23% of its workforce. According to its co-founder and CEO, Vlad Tenev, the layoff impacted employees from all departments but focus mostly on operations, marketing, and program management functions.
The Co-founder admitted that Robinhood over-hired employees in 2021, thinking the growing retail engagement witnessed last year would persist into 2022. However, Tenez said the company intends to still retain the dismissed employees till October 1, 2022. Also, he affirms the commitment of the firm to paying their “cash severance, support with job searching, and payment of COBRA medical, dental, and vision insurance payments.”
Additionally, the Co-founder announced a restructuring of the company into a General Manager (GM) structure. This, according to him, means GMs takes “broad responsibilities for their individual businesses.” With this, Robinhood aims to flatten hierarchies, lower cross-functional dependencies, and eliminates redundant roles and positions.
Read More: