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US crypto lobbying expenditure doubles in 2021: Here are the biggest spenders

February 8, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

Ripple Labs spent the most on crypto lobbying in the U.S. over the past five years, with expenses totaling $2 million.

Cryptocurrency advocates in the United States have been increasingly putting efforts to support the industry, with crypto lobbying spending growing significantly in recent years.

Crypto-related lobbying expenditure in the U.S. totaled at $4.9 million in 2021, more than doubling from $2.3 million in the previous year, according to a new study by the crypto analytics startup Cryptohead.io. The study is based on lobbying tracking data obtained from research and government transparency group Open Secrets.

According to Cryptohead’s findings, the total lobbying expenditure over the past five years amounted to more than $9.5 million. Back in 2017, the total spending on crypto lobbying equaled as low as $200,000.

*Crypto lobbying expenditure since 2017. Source: Cryptohead.io*

As Cryptohead estimated the U.S. crypto industry's lobbying expenditure at roughly $5 million, some analysts suggest that the industry is spending way more on things like political initiatives. According to a report by Americans for Financial Reform, Wall Street executives, their employees and trade associations invested nearly $3 billion into political initiatives during the 2020 election cycle.

According to the report, Ripple Labs, the developer of the open-source protocol and remittance system Ripple, is the biggest-spending crypto company in the United States over the past five years, with lobbying expenses totaling nearly $2 million.

Ripple Labs is “possibly the most influential crypto company in the USA when it comes to affecting government policy and regulation,” the study notes. As previously reported, Ripple Labs has been under a lawsuit by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission since late 2020, with regulators alleging that the firm was involved in a $1.3 billion unregistered securities offering of XRP.

Other big industry lobbyists include crypto-friendly stock trading app Robinhood, the industry’s advocates group Blockchain Association, Coinbase crypto exchange and blockchain platform Block.one. According to the data, Coinbase was the biggest-spending lobbying blockchain company in 2021, with expenses totaling at over $1.3 million.

*The biggest-spending blockchain lobbyists since 2017. Source: Cryptohead*

The crypto industry’s increased spending on lobbying efforts apparently comes in response to the crypto market attracting more attention from U.S. regulators.

In September 2021, the SEC threatened to sue Coinbase over its crypto yield program Lend, which the regulator considered a security. The firm was eventually forced to cancel the Lend product. Previously, the U.S. Financial Industry Regulatory Authority ordered Robinhood to pay roughly $70 million in fines for “widespread and significant harm” to its users and “systemic supervisory failures” starting as early as September 2016.

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Robinhood Begins Rolling Out Crypto Wallets to Select Customers

January 22, 2022 Bitcoin.com

Trading Titan Robinhood Rolls Out Crypto Wallet Beta Program

January 21, 2022 The Daily Hodl

Robinhood crypto wallet testing is live: 1,000 users can now withdraw

January 21, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

The popular stock and crypto trading platform will allow crypto withdrawals to a limited number of users who signed up for the crypto wallet waitlist program.

Online retail investing platform Robinhood has released its long awaited crypto wallet for beta testing which will finally enable users to withdraw crypto from the platform.

The first 1,000 users that signed up to the waitlist for ‘Wallets’ are eligible to take part in beta testing. Wallets testers will be able to withdraw crypto valued up to $2,999 over a maximum of 10 total transactions daily.

Robinhood is a financial services platform backed by Citadel Securities that offers stock and crypto trading. Robinhood’s crypto purchaser users have awaited the release of Wallets since mid 2021 when the waitlist was first created. The last public count of sign-ups to the waitlist revealed by Brown stood at 1.6 million in November, or about 7% of its total user base.

While the current limit of testers is capped at 1,000, the company plans to raise the cap to 10,000 by March. A Jan. 20 announcement from Robinhood stated that:

“Beta testers will help us test core functionality and provide critical feedback to inform the final version of the product.”

Wallets testers will be required to perform know-your-customer (KYC) identification if they are not existing Robinhood users and use a two-factor authentication app.

Robinhood’s Crypto COO Christine Brown tweeted today that while the Beta program is ongoing, the company will work “to finalize the send and receive flows and add delightful QR scanning experiences, improved transaction history, and block explorer support.”

Over the duration of the Beta program, we will be working to finalize the send and receive flows and add delightful QR scanning experiences, improved transaction history, and block explorer support so you can see your transactions on-chain— and more!https://t.co/db5afxwQWx
— Christine (Hall) Brown (@christine_hall) January 20, 2022

Up until the release of Wallets, any crypto bought on the platform could not be withdrawn nor stored privately, making it essentially a crypto transaction in name only.

Now however, Robinhood’s growing crypto division is beginning to resemble a full-fledged crypto exchange that the company says will “fully connect Robinhood crypto holders to the greater blockchain ecosystem for the very first time.”

Many of its traders favor Dogecoin (DOGE) as their coin of choice. DOGE accounted for 41% of Robinhood’s total revenue in Q2 2021 and 19% in Q3. There are also rumors that the company will list Shiba Inu (SHIB) since Robinhood co-founder Vlad Kardapoltsev recently commented on the rising number of SHIB token holders.

Brown ha stated that listing SHIB would depend on regulatory feasibility.

Robinhood (HOOD) share price has fallen to an all-time low of $13.50 in after hours trading.

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