Robinhood has reportedly added $25 million worth of Bitcoin to its corporate balance sheet, as the brokerage steps up efforts to demonstrate its bullish stance on the world’s largest digital currency.
In an exclusive interview on The Starting Block on October 7, Johann Kerbrat, Robinhood’s senior vice president and general manager of crypto and international, told The Block that the purchase was intended to signal the company’s commitment to the crypto sector.
“We care deeply about bitcoin and the ecosystem around it,” said Kerbrat. “For us, it’s more aligning our company and our vision with the crypto community.”
He noted that the $25 million Bitcoin purchase represents a relatively small investment for Robinhood given the company’s size.
“Robinhood is a massive company at this point, with a market cap in the $100 billion [range]. So the $25 million worth of bitcoin is not going to change a lot of the current trajectory of the company,” said Kerbrat.
The purchase comes as publicly traded companies worldwide continue to add Bitcoin to their balance sheets. On Monday, Bitcoin treasury company Strategy announced that it acquired an additional 334 BTC for roughly $28.7 million between September 28 and October 4. The purchase brought its total holdings to 848,000 BTC, according to Bitcoin Treasuries.
Read More: Robinhood Flags SEC Stock-Token Limits as Regulator Proposes Crypto Custody Rules
Wider Push into Digital Asset Ecosystems
Robinhood continues to expand its crypto-related offerings.
Last week, the company announced its plans to enable perpetual trading in the coming months for eligible U.S. users to take long or short positions on assets, including Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH).
The company is also expanding Robinhood Chain, a Layer 2 built using Arbitrum’s tech stack.
The chain’s public mainnet went live in July and reached $1.05 billion in total value locked on Tuesday, The Block reported.
The company also introduced Stock Tokens, allowing eligible users to trade equities 24/7 directly on Robinhood Chain.
“We have 28 million funded accounts on the platform: 27 million in the U.S., and 1 million outside of the U.S. We also have our Robinhood wallet, which is the official wallet for Robinhood Chain, available in 120 plus countries,” said Kerbrat.
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