At Consensus 2023 on April 27, Robinhood announced the launch of “Robinhood Connect,” a fiat-to-crypto on-ramp that supports decentralised applications (DApps) and self-custody wallets, positioning itself as a competitor to similar services such as Coinbase Pay and MoonPay.
Introducing our latest investment in crypto, Robinhood Connect: https://t.co/SmENSYufBA
A low-cost, on-ramp for customers, and a seamless integration for developers. Learn more: https://t.co/rnBnR0LYww pic.twitter.com/6uSIAJkudO
— Robinhood (@RobinhoodApp) April 27, 2023
With Robinhood Connect, users can purchase and sell cryptocurrency directly to and from their self-custody wallet or natively in DApps using a credit or debit card. The service features integration with Web3 projects, which enables developers to embed the service directly into applications, allowing customers to access their Robinhood credentials natively in DApps.
Johann Kerbrat, general manager of Robinhood Crypto, explained that the service was developed to bring more people into the cryptocurrency space. Currently, Robinhood Connect is only available in the MyDoge, Giddy, and Slingshot ecosystems, but upcoming support for Exodus and Phantom has been announced.
While the market for fiat-to-crypto services is not crowded, Robinhood is one of the few companies associated with traditional finance to enter the space. The company claims to have 23 million total user accounts and $74.7 billion in assets under custody as of January 2023, which is significantly lower than Coinbase’s claimed 110 million verified users but has a similar asset count. MoonPay and Webull, two of its rival companies, have an estimated five and 13 million users, respectively.
The launch of Robinhood Connect comes a couple of months after the launch of Robinhood’s own branded self-custody wallet on the iOS App Store, which currently has a 3.9-star rating and ranks No. 144 in downloads for the finance category. Robinhood also announced several changes to the Robinhood app, such as the ability to conduct advanced orders via stop orders and stop limit orders.
