FinTech news in Robinhood category
To get the product up and running as soon as possible, Robinhood is inviting anyone with an existing Robinhood account or who is eligible to create a Robinhood account — meaning they are 18 and over and meet other standard criteria — to join the waitlist. (Waitlisting users is a move that Robinhood has used numerous times, including with its crypto product, to both build buzz and ensure a smoother experience for users as they are moved past the figurative velvet rope.) To head off similar criticism with this new product, the company is taking early steps to provide what Tenev described as in-app guidance, education and guardrails for users. Once onboarded, users will have the choice of investing in stocks and ETFs through either a traditional IRA or a Roth IRA, says Robinhood.
Notably, Robinhood says it won’t charge Robinhood Wallet users network or gas fees for transactions, differentiating its non-custodial offering from other popular non-custodial wallets such as Metamask and Coinbase Wallet. Robinhood rolled out a custodial crypto wallet to its users earlier this year and says it plans to complete a full rollout of the non-custodial wallet to 1 million+ users on the waitlist after the beta is complete, sometime before the end of 2022. Over time, the Robinhood team plans to build out multichain support for the wallet beyond the Polygon ecosystem, Robinhood crypto product manager Seong Seog Lee told journalist. Robinhood is finally rolling out a beta version of its non-custodial crypto wallet to 10,000 customers on its waitlist after announcing the product in May, its CTO and general manager of crypto, Johann Kerbrat, told journalist.
It’s been a volatile year for retail investment behemoth Robinhood. The fintech company is laying off 23% of its workforce, as first reported by the Wall Street Journal and confirmed by TechCrunch. The layoff comes just three months after Robinhood cut 9% of full time staff. At the time of its last layoffs in late April, \[…\]
The exchange says it will not receive payment for order flow (PFOF), a method for order fulfillment Robinhood became notorious for that involves the exchange receiving payment from market makers for directing orders their way.
Robinhood to let users lend out their shares in its attempt to diversify revenue On Deck cuts 25% of staff, scales back accelerator On Deck, a tech company that connects founders, laid off about 72 people this week, which amounts to about 25% of staff Over the past week, we’ve witnessed an alarming amount of layoffs across the startup ecosystem, from buzzy, big names like Cameo, On Deck and Robinhood, to B2B platforms like Workrise and Thrasio. Amazon aggregator Thrasio begins layoffs, names new CEO Thrasio’s business model is to buy up and consolidate third-party Amazon sellers, but apparently, that strategy is rife with ups and downs.
Quick thoughts: This is another area that YC clearly sees as beginning to show promise, with past YC companies that include CrowdForce (which raised $3.6 million in funding last month) and Kudi (it raised $55 million last summer at a $500 million valuation). Blocknom Website: https://blocknom.com Founded: 2021 Location: Jakarta, Indonesia Team size: 6 Promises include: Providing an alternative payment infrastructure without the need for a payment card or consumer app so that customers can pay businesses from their phones without internet access. Among them is Mina Shahid, co-founder and CEO, who says he is a two-time founder and previously worked with co-founder Ben Best at another lending company in Ghana that failed.
Of course, Robinhood also warned of risks in extended-hours trading, but noted the additional hours would give customers the ability to trade based on quarterly earnings announcements made after the market closes, as well as based on activity taking place in foreign markets.