US brokerage Robinhood Markets (Robinhood) plans to launch crypto-related services in the European Union. The planned rollout of the Robinhood app to European consumers was announced after the company’s crypto trading revenue fell 26% year-over-year, and it closed off its link with FTX in September.
The company’s CEO, Vlad Tenev, hopes Robinhood will be able to offer “hundreds of millions of” crypto traders a “different set of assets” with greater regulatory clarity in Europe. The company’s crypto trading business will ultimately fall under the Markets in Crypto-Assets bill when it goes into effect in 2024.
Robinhood Eyes Europe Like Crypto Rivals
The US Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) categorizing several crypto assets as securities prompted Robinhood to delist them. In June, the SEC classified Solana, Polygon, and Cardano as unregistered securities that US crypto companies could not offer.
Accordingly, the amount of crypto Robinhood held for customers fell 11% from Q3. The company’s crypto revenue fell from $31 million in 2022 to $23 million in 2023. Robinhood’s announcements caused its share price to fall 7.5% to $9.03 after markets closed on Tuesday. The price has since recovered.
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The brokerage suffered a sharp drop-off in its share price after the bear market of 2022. From a peak of $55.01 in August 2021, its stock plummeted to $7.19 in June 2022.
Robinhood’s planned move to the EU means it will compete with Coinbase and Kraken, who have secured licenses in certain European regions. Coinbase holds licenses in Italy, Spain, France, Ireland, and The Netherlands, while Kraken is authorized in Spain and Ireland.
Robinhood Links to FTX
Robinhood’s app became popular for trading stocks and crypto during the pandemic. It is perhaps infamous for the GameStop short squeeze mania in 2021 when users of a Subreddit forum and hedge funds created a rush for shares by shorting GameStop stock.
The company made headlines earlier this year when it bought back 55 million shares former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried purchased using Emergent Fidelity Technologies, an FTX company that collapsed last year. Robinhood bought the shares, worth $600 million, from the United States Marshall Service following their seizure by the US Department of Justice in January.
Bankman-Fried has to surrender all of his assets following his recent fraud convictions in a New York court. The Robinhood shares comprised a large percentage of his assets when he was arrested last December.
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