Robinhood Crypto Now Lets You Buy Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash

Markets 1 min, 56 sec READ

by Abhimanyu Krishnan

The U.S. exchange Robinhood has added Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash, expanding its list of tokens to four. The company intends to add more tokens.

Robinhood, the startup that launched its crypto-focused investment platform called Robinhood Crypto in February, has listed two new tokens on their platform, Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash. The two new coins join Bitcoin and Ethereum and come in response to customers’ growing calls for additional trading options.

Robinhood is a U.S. Based financial services company launched in 2013 and headquartered in California. With the Wall Street Journal recently valuing the company at $5.6 billion, the rise has been quick and the company has many expansion plans on the horizon. The roadmap sees them moving deeper into cryptocurrency by listing the aforementioned coins, expanding availability to include New Jersey just this week, and promising that there is more to come.

Robinhood only serves the United States at the moment. Moreover, crypto trading is limited to 17 states within the country, which can be viewed on the startup’s blog post. The platform can be used both via a mobile app or through the browser, and allows a user to make his or trades through a quick procedure that only requires the deposit of funds - with no verification required.

Not an Exchange, Many New Features Rumored

It is also worth noting that Robinhood is not an exchange itself. Rather, it works with other exchanges to facilitate crypto trades for its users, effectively acting as competition for crypto exchanges. Despite its small offerings and lack of a wallet (users must convert to fiat first), Robinhood’s biggest advantage is that it makes getting into cryptocurrency trading, has proven to be a growing pain for the industry, a very easy process.

The addition of these two popular tokens and the promise of more appears to be part of a strategy to put more focus on cryptocurrency. We reported that Robinhood had listed a job advertisement for the position of cryptocurrency engineer, whose responsibilities would include working on a cryptocurrency wallet. A wallet would enable users to transfer crypto assets from Robinhood to other services. 

In a tight market with multiple players, analysts are looking at Robinhood and whether developments such as built-in wallets, coupled with its intuitive interface, could result in disruption.