Robinhood CFO: Regulations Staying Our Hand on Crypto

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  • Robinhood CFO Jason Warnick has said that the company has no plans to add more cryptocurrencies
  • Robinhood offers seven coins and wants “more clarity” from regulators
  • The platform became popular during the pandemic with amateur traders

The CFO of Robinhood, Jason Warnick, last week told the Wall Street Journal that users want more cryptocurrency options but that the company is holding back over regulatory concerns. Warnick told the Wall Street Journal’s CFO Network Summit that Robinhood is well aware that its users want the ability to trade more cryptocurrencies, but until there is more regulatory clarity the company is wary of doing so. Warnick also said during the summit that Robinhood doesn’t plan to put much of its own balance sheet into cryptocurrencies.

Robinhood Seeks “More Clarity From Regulators”

Warnick was speaking at the CFO summit last week when he addressed the subject of cryptocurrencies on the platform. Robinhood was a catalyst for the incredible runs of some cryptocurrencies last year, most notably DOGE which ran 6,700% between January and May last year, with huge numbers of people using Robinhood to do it.

Warnick said that while Robinhood was “not lost on us that our customers and others would like to see us add more coins”, which would increase its revenue massively, doing so was not straightforward:

We’re a highly regulated company in a highly regulated industry, and we think it’s important that we get a bit more clarity from regulators.

Robinhood currently only supports seven cryptocurrencies and said in November that it was not in a rush to add more.

Patience Will Pay

With issues such as Ripple’s ongoing securities battle with the Securities and Exchange Commission it is hardly surprising that Robinhood is taking its time adding new cryptocurrencies, as delaying the addition of certain coins until they are absolutely sure of their legal merits is far more appealing that potentially withdrawing them from sale a few months down the line.

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