Why Robinhood, a TradFi Hub, Is Growing Its Crypto Business Globally

Robinhood spent $200 million to acquire Bitstamp and expand its crypto operations to the EU. But it won’t stop there.

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Robinhood has been in the spotlight for its $200 million acquisition of European crypto exchange Bitstamp. The TradFi app’s venture into crypto is paying off: its recent earnings showed that revenue is growing substantially, and the Bitstamp acquisition is just one way the company will grow the pie.

Johann Kerbrat, general manager of Robinhood Crypto, came on the show to discuss the acquisition, Robinhood's plans for expanding its crypto business internationally and into the institutional market, the company's approach to listing crypto assets, how regulation has affected its business decisions, and its efforts to bridge traditional finance and decentralized finance.

Show highlights:

How the acquisition of Bitstamp will reshape Robinhood
Whether Robinhood could list more coins and whether it’s considering more acquisitions
Whether the U.S.’s unclear crypto regulation influenced the decision to acquire Bitstamp and which other jurisdictions, besides the EU, Robinhood Crypto is eyeing
Why Johann was disappointed by the Wells notice Robinhood received from the SEC
Johann’s U.S. crypto regulation wish list and why Robinhood supports the FIT21 bill
Why Robinhood delisted ADA, MATIC, and SOL, and the process for listing or delisting a coin on the platform
Johann’s background in crypto and trajectory at Robinhood Crypto
How Robinhood is uniquely poised to help bring real-world assets and securities on-chain, and how it will handle offerings for institutional investors
The impact and importance of the introduction of spot bitcoin ETFs
Why Robinhood decided to offer staking, but only for Solana, not Ethereum
Whether there’s demand for crypto-native features in the Robinhood platform
Robinhood’s collaboration with Arbitrum and whether the company might build their own Layer 2
Johann’s take on the memecoin mania and whether Robinhood could list them
What Johann thinks about the political fight around crypto in the U.S.

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Guest:

Johann Kerbrat, general manager of Robinhood Crypto

Links

Acquisition of Bitstamp:

Unchained: Q&A With Robinhood Crypto General Manager: Why the Crypto Giant Went to the EU
Fortune: Robinhood defies the SEC by forking over $200 million for a crypto exchange
DL News: Robinhood crypto head says Bitstamp will help lure wealthy investors

Robinhood’s crypto business:

Bloomberg: Robinhood (HOOD) Profit Beats Estimates as Crypto Revenue Surges

Robinhood Reports First Quarter 2024 Results

Regulatory actions:

Reuters: Robinhood Crypto gets Wells notice from US SEC

Robinhood Crypto Launches Staking in Europe with Localized Apps to Follow

Memecoin mania

Unchained:

Celebrity Tokens Continue to Bleed With Some Memecoin Traders Losing Six-Figures

Why Memecoins Have Been 2024's Most Profitable Crypto Trade: Ansem and Kelxyz

Ether ETFs:

Unchained:

Ethereum ETFs Likely Protect Ether From the SEC. But What About Staked ETH?

Why the SEC May Not Be Done in Its Legal Battles Over Ethereum

Kerbrat’s statement on ETFs

Unchained Podcast is Produced by Laura Shin Media, LLC. Distributed by CoinDesk. Senior Producer is Michele Musso and Executive Producer is Jared Schwartz.

HOST

Laura Shin

Laura Shin is a crypto journalist, host of the Unchained podcast, and author of “The Cryptopians: Idealism, Greed, Lies, and the Making of the First Big Cryptocurrency Craze” (Public Affairs, 2022). Formerly a senior editor at Forbes, she was the first mainstream journalist to cover crypto full-time, and her podcasts and videos have had more than 15 million downloads and views. Shin has spoken about cryptocurrency at places such as TEDx San Francisco, the International Monetary Fund, Singularity University and the Oslo Freedom Forum.

She graduated Phi Beta Kappa with Honors from Stanford University and has a master of arts from Columbia University’s School of Journalism. She lives in New York City.