Robinhood expanding in Europe while US landscape remains uncertain
Plus, this election just isn’t about crypto
Primakov/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks
Today, enjoy the Empire newsletter on Blockworks.co. Tomorrow, get the news delivered directly to your inbox. Subscribe to the Empire newsletter.
Can’t stop, won’t stop
Robinhood continues to expand its European offerings, announcing yesterday that it was rolling out transfers that will allow users to move crypto in and out of its app.
Robinhood’s Johann Kerbrat told me that the company will continue to develop new features. He added that Robinhood is currently limiting its marketing to a few countries in the EU as it awaits its MiCA license. Once it has that in hand, it plans to scale to all “across the EU.”
Unfortunately, to no one’s surprise, the US market isn’t so easy.
Obviously there isn’t a crypto license that’ll allow Robinhood to safely offer the same types of features to US residents. And then there’s the pesky matter of the SEC’s Wells notice.
Kerbrat said that the company hasn’t heard anything back from the SEC “at this point.”
“We were disappointed. I think we’ve been really focusing on establishing a safe business. We didn’t list a ton of assets like some of our competitors. We never offered staking in the US. So, we’ve felt like we’ve done our work to work with the SEC and get to a good position, but we were obviously disappointed with the Wells Notice,” Kerbrat said.
It’s unclear, at this stage, what the SEC is planning. The regulatory agency had a spree of crypto-related enforcement actions last month (45 to be exact, but who’s counting?) to round out its fiscal year. And yet it bucked the pattern that I, personally, thought we’d see if they were to file a lawsuit against Robinhood.
In May I wrote that, based on how the SEC has approached other lawsuits, it was likely that it would file its court actions (if it chooses to do so, because Wells notices don’t always mean that a lawsuit is incoming) last summer. And it did… with Consensys after the company received a Wells notice last spring. But we haven’t seen actual lawsuits against either Robinhood or Uniswap yet.
But despite the will-they-won’t-they situation playing out with the SEC, Kerbrat says nothing’s really changed for Robinhood when it comes to its US business. Though, he noted, they’re not super focused on adding more assets to the platform.
“Our focus at this point is more about making sure that the features we have are working for our customers,” he noted.
So is retail bouncing back?
“I think we still see a lot of engagement off-chain and on-chain. And I think the on-chain part is important because it really shows that people are not just buying the crypto somewhere and holding it there, but we actually see them transacting and using a self-custody wallet, engaging with steps and all these kind of things. So we haven’t seen too much of that changing. We do see volume cycling, and that’s something that we are used to. We see it almost every year,” he said.
And, finally, I asked Kerbrat about the stablecoin rumors. While he noted that stablecoins are a “very interesting business,” he clarified that “at this point we don’t have anything that we are preparing.”
Robinhood’s close to closing its Bitstamp acquisition — which will happen in the first half of 2025 and for Robinhood, that’s going to be a focus this quarter… which is the final one of 2024.
Time flies when you’re having fun, right?
— Katherine Ross
Data Center
- Bitcoin fell to $60,953 (down 4.4%) as the conflict in the Middle East intensified Tuesday.
- Ether dropped 7% to $2,446 on the news.
- SOL fell under $150 to $146, also dropping 7%. SOL and ether saw the biggest drops.
- $557 million was liquidated from traders in the past 24 hours with $484 million in long liquidations, according to data from Coinglass.
- Spot bitcoin ETFs notched outflows of $243 million on Tuesday, the biggest outflows in nearly a month.
Opinion: No ‘crypto elections’ here
Another election season debate — this time featuring would-be VPs JD Vance and Tim Walz — has come and gone, with nary a whisper about crypto.
I suppose it was to be expected. Despite efforts within the industry to characterize crypto as an election-year issue, I don’t think it actually worked. There was one moment when the debate shifted into the topic of inflation, and I half expected Vance — whose campaign has focused on crypto more deeply than the Democrats — to throw in a mention. Alas not.
Perhaps the tradition of crypto journalists eagerly awaiting something to write about on debate nights should be quietly put aside, at least until Gen Z candidates begin taking the stage.
Some recent industry-backed polling has once again pushed the idea that vast swaths of Americans are focused on crypto issues and, in turn, want their candidates to be better informed and more focused on said issues.
Admittedly, this has always been a difficult narrative to swallow. Far more likely in my view is that folks, rather than wanting their candidates to “know about crypto,” simply want candidates who are, well, informed about things beyond their own fundraising numbers. You don’t have to travel far in America to find folks who see the US government as out of touch with their daily lives.
Trump’s apparent transformation from bitcoin hero to DeFi platform hype man gives away the game. It wasn’t ever about any kind of ideological alignment — to put it bluntly, it’s the art of playing to the room in order to get campaign cash. It seems like it succeeded. Along the way, the US crypto sector transformed into another American special interest, with a political funding apparatus that must be maintained in perpetuity. What happens when the money stops? Inquiring minds wish to know.
Somewhere between World Liberty Financial and Kamala Harris’ more-or-less restatement of Biden White House crypto policy is a simple truth: this election isn’t about crypto. Yes, Americans hold crypto. Perhaps quite a few of them. But does this also make them gold voters? ETF voters? World Liberty Financial governance token voters?
The crypto world can and should invest money to push and promote its ideas in the public square. Effective PR can work. But I would caution about reading the crypto poll tea leaves too deeply — there simply isn’t much there for now.
— Michael McSweeney
The Works
- CoinDesk published an investigative report into the inadvertent hiring of North Korean developers by numerous crypto startups.
- Bitwise has filed to register a trust entity in Delaware for a spot XRP ETF.
- Australian officials seized millions of dollars in crypto from the alleged creator of a dark web messaging app.
- World Liberty Financial says “thousands” of users have signed up to its whitelist.
- Solana startups are beginning to bet on a yet-to-be-built staking ecosystem.
The Riff
Q: Are we in for a ‘Downtober’?
The best I can muster here as an answer is another question: where are the positive catalysts?
Softening inflation (by some metrics), war in the Middle East, a spicy presidential election in the US…do these lend themselves well to number-go-up? It doesn’t exactly feel like it.
There seems to be a belief among some that a Trump win would be a boon for crypto prices. Maybe, at least, for holders of World Liberty Financial tokens.
It’s hard to shake the feeling that things might just continue to meander along for a while. A market in search of a narrative or a scrap of good news. Mehtobert? Yawntober? Stay tuned.
— Michael McSweeney
Pain before gains, amirite?
While yesterday’s escalation of Middle Eastern conflict is a risky sign for bitcoin, the long-held belief is that the fourth quarter is when crypto will start to ramp up once more.
Now whether that means that spooky vibes settle in for the next month before the cobwebs are shaken off at the end of the year or if this conflict is serious enough to throw off the price predictions we’ve talked about (bitcoin at $75,000 or more by the end of the year), I’m not sure yet.
And, unfortunately, I’ve misplaced my crystal ball.
One thing’s for sure: Uptober or Downtober (or Mehtober, as McSweeney suggested) doesn’t matter if there are enough catalysts for a bull market next year.
— Katherine Ross
Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. Subscribe to the Empire newsletter.
Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter.
Get alpha directly in your inbox with the 0xResearch newsletter — market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more.
The Lightspeed newsletter is all things Solana, in your inbox, every day. Subscribe to daily Solana news from Jack Kubinec and Jeff Albus.
