The company intends to roll out the services with guidance from local regulators by late this year.
Singapore: Robinhood Markets Inc plans to launch Singapore crypto offerings this year through an entity of European digital-assets exchange Bitstamp Ltd, which it recently acquired.
The company intends to roll out the services with guidance from local regulators by late this year, although it hasn’t yet set a launch date, said Johann Kerbrat, vice-president and general manager of Robinhood Crypto, in an interview with Bloomberg News.
Singapore has fashioned itself as a hub for the digital-assets industry in the Asia-Pacific region, vying with the likes of Hong Kong to lure global operators with a dedicated regulatory regime and tokenisation initiatives.
Robinhood bought Bitstamp for US$200mil last June, in part to pave the way for expanding into Singapore.
“Part of the reason why Bitstamp was attractive was because of their licences with Singapore, in addition to its institutional business,” Kerbrat said.
Bitstamp said last year that it had received in-principle approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
Kerbrat added that the launch of Robinhood’s crypto products in Singapore should come a few months after the Bitstamp deal closes, which is expected to happen in the first half of this year pending regulatory approval.
In addition to Singapore, Bitstamp holds licences and registrations in European Union countries including Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and France, according to its website.
Robinhood in December announced plans to launch its wider trading businesses in Asia this year, tapping Singapore as its home base.
The Menlo Park, California-based company’s foray into Asia comes as competitors including China’s Tiger Brokers and Futu Holdings Ltd are expanding internationally.
Robinhood plans to secure brokerage licences in the region as part of its expansion efforts.
It launched crypto trading in Europe in late 2023 and US equity options trading for British customers in February.
Last year, Robinhood partnered with crypto companies including Kraken and Galaxy Digital to launch a stablecoin called USDG, set to be issued by Paxos out of Singapore.
The business has been booming amid a digital-asset market rally sparked by US President Donald Trump’s pro-crypto agenda.
In the fourth quarter of last year, Robinhood’s revenue more than doubled to US$1bil, beating Wall Street analyst estimates of US$940.8mil.
Kerbrat said the firm is seeing a lot of customer demand for memecoins, a speculative corner of the market that has seen a surge in attention after the high-profile launch of Trump’s eponymous token.
The tendency of such tokens to dramatically appreciate in value and then just as quickly collapse has drawn both interest and criticism.
“We don’t want to make decisions for the customer but if customers are asking for something and we feel like we have a way to offer it safely, we will do it,” Kerbrat said in an interview with Bloomberg News at the Consensus crypto conference in Hong Kong on Wednesday.
Robinhood is moving into the Asian market just as the global crypto space hits new highs, fuelled by a rush of adoption and institutional-investor interest.
According to data from independent cryptocurrency data aggregator CoinGecko, the cryptocurrency market topped US$3.2 trillion by the end of last month. — Bloomberg
