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‘This is on me’ — Robinhood CEO to lay off 23% of staff after Q2 loss

The online retail broker blamed the economy for a decline in user numbers and net revenue that fell 44% year-on-year, although revenue from crypto rose moderately this quarter.

Online brokerage Robinhood will lay off nearly a quarter of its employees, citing a continued deterioration of the macro environment and a broad crypto market crash. 

The bad news came in a blog post on August 2 from cofounder and CEO Vlad Tenev, on the same day it released tepid Q2 financial results, while the New York Department of Financial Services announced a $30 million fine for the company’s crypto branch due to alleged anti-money laundering, cybersecurity, and consumer protection violations.

Tenev wrote that the layoffs would impact all functions in the company, particularly operations, marketing, and program management, with around 23% of the staff let go. The Financial Times estimated the number of employees impacted to be around 780.

Robinhood laid off 9% of its staff earlier this year, but Tenev said the cuts “did not go far enough." He pointed to economic conditions and the collapse of the crypto market as factors in the move.

“This has further reduced customer trading activity and assets under custody.”

In addition, the company had wrongly assumed the heightened engagement seen during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic would continue. Tenev wrote:

“As CEO, I approved and took responsibility for our ambitious staffing trajectory — this is on me.”

The company issued its quarterly financial results a day earlier than scheduled. Results were disheartening, with $318 million in net revenue, down 44% year-on-year, although up 6% over the last quarter. Net loss was $295 million, narrowed from a net loss of $502 million in Q2 2021.

Monthly active users were down 1.9 million from last quarter to 14.0 million in June, and assets under custody dropped 31% to $64.2 billion in that time.

Revenue from cryptocurrency rose 7% quarter-on-quarter to $58 million, however.

Related: Robinhood makes significant strides in crypto business in Q1 despite falling revenue

Robinhood enjoyed a significant spike in share price in May after FTX founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried paid $650 million for a 7.6% stake in the company. Share prices fell more than 4% Tuesday in after-hours trading, according to FT.

‘BITSANITY’ — Records broken with $70B in volume for Bitcoin stocks, ETFs

Robinhood to Compete Against Coinbase With Launch of New Crypto and NFT Wallet

Robinhood to Compete Against Coinbase With Launch of New Crypto and NFT Wallet

Retail trading platform Robinhood is launching a new non-custodial crypto and non-fungible token (NFT) wallet in the company’s latest push to embrace the digital asset space. According to a new press release, the trading titan has started developing a multichain Web 3.0 wallet that will allow investors to have total control of their digital assets […]

The post Robinhood to Compete Against Coinbase With Launch of New Crypto and NFT Wallet appeared first on The Daily Hodl.

‘BITSANITY’ — Records broken with $70B in volume for Bitcoin stocks, ETFs

Robinhood axes almost 1 in 10 staff members as stock hits all-time low

“We determined that making these reductions to Robinhood’s staff is the right decision to improve efficiency,” noted Robinhood CEO and co-founder Vlad Tenev.

Popular retail trading platform Robinhood has fired 9% of its workforce amid a firesale of its stock that has seen HOOD plunge to all-time lows.

In the past 30 days alone, HOOD has tanked roughly 38% to sit at $9.99 at the time of writing, marking the lowest price since the initial public offering (IPO) launch in mid-2021.

The decline is part of a longer-term bearish trend that has seen the price of HOOD continually decrease since its all-time high of roughly $70.39 on Aug. 4 2021 according to TradingView.

Robinhood publicly announced its staff readjustment via an April 26 blog post by CEO and co-founder Vlad Tenev. He noted that after going through a “period of hyper-growth” between 2020 and H1 2021, the firm’s headcount had increased nearly six times, from 700 to nearly 3800 employees.

However, Tenev suggested that too many job roles at the company have since become unnecessary, stating that:

“This rapid headcount growth has led to some duplicate roles and job functions, and more layers and complexity than are optimal. After carefully considering all these factors, we determined that making these reductions to Robinhood’s staff is the right decision to improve efficiency.”

“We will retain and continue to hire exceptional talent in key roles and provide additional learning and career growth opportunities for our employees,” he added.

Related: Robinhood CEO outlines how DOGE could become ‘currency of the internet’

Crypto to help drive the recovery?

Moving forward, Robinhood stated in the announcement that it is positioned well for the future with more than $6 billion worth of cash on its balance sheet, while also noting that it will continue to introduce “key new products across Brokerage, Crypto, and Spending/Saving” in 2022.

The firm’s total revenue last year totaled $1.82 billion, up 89% compared to 2020, and a significant part of Robinhood’s performance was due to revenue generated from crypto services.

Crypto transaction revenue totalled $419 million in 2021 marking a whopping 1451% increase compared to the year prior. In Q2 2021 in particular, crypto accounted for 41% of Robinhood’s total revenue, however it's worth noting that the figure dropped down to around 13% by Q4.

Robinhood doesn’t appear to be losing interest in the sector this year however, and has made many moves geared towards expanding its crypto offerings of late.

On April 19, Cointelegraph reported that Robinhood acquired British crypto-asset firm Ziglu to help its expansion plans into U.K. and European markets, something which Tenev highlighted will “continue to accelerate” this year.

Earlier this month, Robinhood also rolled out its highly anticipated crypto wallet to 2 million waitlisted users, outlined plans to integrate the Lighting Network, and it listed Shiba Inu (SHIB) after months of campaigning from its supporters.

‘BITSANITY’ — Records broken with $70B in volume for Bitcoin stocks, ETFs

Elon Musk Tweets About Dogecoin Becoming ‘Currency of the Internet’ With DOGE Co-Creator and Robinhood CEO

Elon Musk Tweets About Dogecoin Becoming ‘Currency of the Internet’ With DOGE Co-Creator and Robinhood CEO

Three prominent figures in the crypto world say that popular meme token Dogecoin (DOGE) could become “the people’s currency” under the right circumstances. In a recent Twitter conversation, billionaire Elon Musk, DOGE co-creator Billy Markus and Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev discuss what it would take for the dog-themed crypto asset to become the currency of […]

The post Elon Musk Tweets About Dogecoin Becoming ‘Currency of the Internet’ With DOGE Co-Creator and Robinhood CEO appeared first on The Daily Hodl.

‘BITSANITY’ — Records broken with $70B in volume for Bitcoin stocks, ETFs

Robinhood Crypto Wallets Rolled Out to Over 2 Million Customers

Robinhood Crypto Wallets Rolled Out to Over 2 Million CustomersTrading platform Robinhood has rolled out its new crypto wallets to more than two million customers. In addition, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev announced that the platform will integrate with the Lightning Network “to bring even lower costs to our customers.” More Than 2 Million Users Can Now Use Robinhood Crypto Wallets Popular trading platform Robinhood […]

‘BITSANITY’ — Records broken with $70B in volume for Bitcoin stocks, ETFs

Robinhood CEO Says Waitlist for Firm’s New Crypto Wallet Reached 1 Million Customers

Robinhood CEO Says Waitlist for Firm’s New Crypto Wallet Reached 1 Million CustomersOn Thursday, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev spoke at a conference called the Disruptor 50 Summit and the executive explained that the waitlist for the company’s recently announced crypto wallet has 1 million sign-ups so far. “We’re very proud of our cryptocurrency platform and giving people more utility with the coins they have,” Tenev said during […]

‘BITSANITY’ — Records broken with $70B in volume for Bitcoin stocks, ETFs

Robinhood crypto wallet waitlist hits 1 million people

Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev said crypto as an asset class is here to “stay” and revealed that over a million users have signed up to the firm’s crypto wallet waitlist.

More than 1 million people are on the waitlist for Robinhood’s long-awaited crypto wallet according to CEO Vlad Tenev

Speaking to Jim Cramer during CNBC’s Disruptor 50 summit on Oct. 21, Tenev stated that was very “proud” of Robinhood's progress in crypto, as he highlighted the firm’s recent push to provide a crypto wallet for its users:

“A lot of people have been asking us for the ability to send and receive cryptocurrencies, transfer them to hardware wallets, transfer them onto the platform to consolidate. And you know, the crypto wallets waitlist is well over a million people now, which is very exciting.”

“We see an opportunity to continue growing that business,” he added.

Robinhood users have long urged the company to develop a crypto wallet as the platform currently does not support deposits or withdrawals, and only allows users to buy crypto with U.S. dollars and trade digital assets on the platform.

On Sept. 22, Robinhood finally announced its plans to roll out a digital asset wallet, and opened up a waitlist for first access to the new feature. A Robinhood representative told Market Watch last month that the wallet will debut this month for some users, and will eventually open up to all users in early 2022.

During the event Tenev emphasized the importance of the emerging crypto sector, noting that it’s “here to stay as an asset class” and it holds specific advantages such as being able to connect a global market.

“So, you know, regardless of where you are in the world whether you’re in the U.S. or overseas, you can have a wallet, you can send people cryptocurrencies from that wallet to their wallet.,” he said.

Related: Robinhood launches 24/7 phone support, crypto users included

Robinhood first launched Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) trading in 2018 for customers in five U.S. states. Robinhood has since expanded its altcoin support to assets such as Dogecoin (DOGE) and Litecoin (LTC), and currently allows traders based in all but four U.S. states to access its commission-free crypto trading services.

When Teven was asked if Robinhood would expand support to Shiba Inu (SHIB), the CEO suggested that it was unlikely anytime soon as he cited the firm’s stringent listing policy.

“We only offer seven coins currently. And I think it goes back to safety first, right. So we’re not generally going to be the first to add any new asset. We want to make sure that it goes through a stringent set of criteria,”

Speaking on the firm’s vision, Tenev argued that Robinhood offers a greater chance for financial inclusion than its competitors, as he asserted that its commission-free trading structure “changed the industry.”

“I think that, you look at cryptocurrencies, for instance, people are still paying 3%, 4% fees to access that market. You see a lot of opportunities to serve more customers that have even less money, who are even more underserved than the people we have now,” he said.

‘BITSANITY’ — Records broken with $70B in volume for Bitcoin stocks, ETFs

Report Suggests Robinhood Owns Largest Dogecoin Address and Third-Largest BTC Wallet

Report Suggests Robinhood Owns Largest Dogecoin Address and Third-Largest BTC WalletLast February the crypto community was obsessed with a specific dogecoin address that happens to be the largest dogecoin holder today with over 36 billion DOGE. One armchair sleuth studied a number of onchain transactions and suspected the company Robinhood owned the wallet. Now the individual has researched the topic again and claims the latest […]

‘BITSANITY’ — Records broken with $70B in volume for Bitcoin stocks, ETFs

Robinhood Raises Almost $2 Billion in IPO, Falls Short of Expected $35 Billion Valuation

Robinhood Raises Almost  Billion in IPO, Falls Short of Expected  Billion ValuationRobinhood, the fee-free cryptocurrency, stock, and options exchange, raised almost $2 billion in its initial public offering, reaching a valuation of $32 billion. While the company is more valuable than Nasdaq itself, the IPO failed to give the company an expected valuation of $35 billion. Robinhood trading will open today, with its shares trading under […]

‘BITSANITY’ — Records broken with $70B in volume for Bitcoin stocks, ETFs

Who Owns the Mystery Dogecoin Whale Address? Robinhood’s CEO Dismisses Speculation

Who Owns the Mystery Dogecoin Whale Address? Robinhood’s CEO Dismisses SpeculationDogecoin has been the talk of the cryptocurrency town for months on end and in recent times, crypto enthusiasts have been discussing the largest holder in the Dogecoin economy. An address with 36.7 billion dogecoin has recently amassed 797 DOGE this week and 3,755 coins during the last month. Crypto speculators think this wallet is […]

‘BITSANITY’ — Records broken with $70B in volume for Bitcoin stocks, ETFs