Robinhood Launches Crypto Trading in the EU, Adds Tokens Delisted in the US

Robinhood, a stock trading app that allows users to buy and sell crypto, has announced that it has officially launched crypto trading in the European Union, one month after revealing plans for it in the company’s quarterly report.

Robinhood users will be able to trade 26 cryptocurrencies, including 11 that are not available for trading by US users. Primarily, the company’s offering for the EU will include SOL, MATIC, and ADA — the respective tokens for the Solana, Polygon, and Cardano blockchains — which Robinhood delisted from its US platform in June due to regulatory pressures.

– The EU has developed one of the most comprehensive global policies for regulating crypto assets, which is why we chose this region for the international expansion of Robinhood Crypto,” said Johann Kerbrat, Robinhood’s head of crypto.

Robinhood’s expansion into Europe is one of the largest crypto announcements from this public company since it officially launched its Web3 wallet in January. Despite a decline in crypto revenue since mid-2021, the online brokerage has remained committed to the legally problematic industry—although things may be changing as Robinhood revealed that crypto trading volumes increased by 75 percent in November compared to the previous month. Robinhood, perhaps best known for its role in the meme stock trading frenzy in early 2021, first introduced its crypto trading platform in 2018, initially listing only Bitcoin and Ethereum. Since then, the platform has sought to expand its offerings, making cryptocurrencies a key part of its business model.

In the second quarter of 2021, revenue from crypto transactions accounted for approximately 41 percent of total revenue, as the price of the meme coin Dogecoin surged. In fact, in that same quarter, fees solely from trading Dogecoin made up nearly 26 percent of Robinhood’s total revenue, according to the quarterly report.

Since then, Robinhood’s crypto business has come under regulatory scrutiny, and revenues from crypto trading transactions have decreased. In August 2022, New York’s top financial regulator fined Robinhood’s crypto unit $30 million. In December 2022, the Securities and Exchange Commission issued a subpoena to the company regarding its crypto business. And in June, the SEC sued Binance and Coinbase, citing SOL, MATIC, and ADA as unregistered securities in its lawsuits. Robinhood shortly thereafter removed cryptocurrencies from its exchange in the US.

Its decision to relist SOL, MATIC, and ADA in the EU—as well as other tokens that the SEC has labeled as unregistered securities, including SAND, MANA, and ATOM—suggests that Robinhood is confident in the European regulatory framework, which enacted comprehensive cryptocurrency laws in April of this year.