At Consensus 2023 on April 27, Robinhood announced the launch of “Robinhood Connect,” a fiat-to-crypto on-ramp that enables users to purchase and sell cryptocurrency directly to and from their self-custody wallet or in DApps using a credit or debit card.
The service is positioned as a competitor to Coinbase Pay and MoonPay, and features integration with Web3 projects, allowing developers to embed the service into applications.
Currently, the Robinhood Connect is only available in certain ecosystems, but support for Exodus and Phantom is ongoing. Johann Kerbrat, general manager of Robinhood Crypto, stated that the service was developed to encourage more people to enter the cryptocurrency space.
Robinhood, a traditional finance company, is one of the few companies to enter the market for fiat-to-crypto services. Robinhood has 23 million total user accounts and $74.7 billion in assets under custody, whereas Coinbase claims 110 million verified users and $80 billion in on-platform assets.
Additionally, the company announced several changes to the Robinhood app, such as the ability to conduct advanced orders via stop and stop limit orders. The launch of the Robinhood Connect and app upgrades followed the launch of Robinhood’s self-custody wallet on the iOS App Store a few months prior.
