Inventory buying and selling platform Robinhood is additional increasing into the cryptocurrency house with its acquisition of cryptocurrency change Bitstamp.

Robinhood stated it expects the transaction to shut within the first half of 2025 and that it expects the ultimate transaction worth to be round $200 million.

Robinhood is finest recognized for its inventory buying and selling companies, permitting shoppers to speculate on this planet's largest publicly traded firms, however it has additionally expanded additional into the cryptocurrency house by supporting lots of the hottest cryptocurrencies, together with Bitcoin, though it restricted among the cryptocurrencies it helps final 12 months as a consequence of scrutiny from U.S. regulators.

Extra cryptocurrencies and world growth

At this time's announcement not solely marks California-based Robinhood's continued dedication to cryptocurrencies, but additionally the corporate's worldwide growth efforts, having launched its flagship inventory buying and selling product within the UK final November and cryptocurrency buying and selling within the European Union shortly thereafter.

Based in Europe in 2011, Bitstamp is among the oldest cryptocurrency exchanges on this planet, permitting companies and people to commerce all varieties of cryptocurrencies. It was acquired by Belgian funding agency NXMH in 2018, and Ripple acquired a stake within the firm final 12 months.

Robinhood went public in mid-2021, however like many firms in the course of the pandemic, its preliminary momentum fizzled out because the world returned to regular. Its $32 billion valuation on the time of its IPO briefly soared to greater than $40 billion earlier than steadily declining to effectively under $10 billion for a lot of the previous two years.

Nonetheless, over the previous 12 months, the corporate's valuation has greater than doubled to $19 billion, buoyed by file income.In its first quarter 2024 report launched in Could, Robinhood introduced that month-to-month lively customers elevated 16% 12 months over 12 months to 13.7 million, and income elevated 40% to $618 million. Notably, trade-based income notably elevated 59% to $329 million, which the corporate stated was primarily pushed by cryptocurrency income, which elevated 232% to $126 million.

Robinhood stated the addition of Bitstamp would put it in a greater place to focus on retail and institutional traders in Europe, Asia and the U.S. Bitstamp presently holds greater than 50 licenses and registrations to function in these markets.

“The acquisition of Bitstamp marks a serious step in rising our crypto enterprise,” Robinhood's common supervisor of crypto, Johan Kjellbladt, stated in a press release. “The Bitstamp staff has established a top-tier fame amongst retail and institutional traders. This strategic mixture will allow us to develop our attain exterior the U.S. and higher place us to welcome institutional traders to Robinhood.”