Robinhood (HOOD) completed two major acquisitions in June: crypto exchange Bitstamp and AI-powered investment platform Pluto. Robinhood CEO Vladimir Tenev joins Wealth! to discuss those moves and how the trading platform is leveraging both cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence:
“The era that really gave rise to Robinhood was mobile and cloud. Those are two big technological shifts that allowed us to carve out a niche in our business because nobody had been really paying attention to mobile… Now, there’s another two technological shifts that are going to affect our space, and those are artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency. Both of those have the potential to completely reorganize how financial services are delivered to customers, both on an infrastructure level and the service level, and we’re thinking about that every day and positioning Robinhood to be successful and a leader across both of these shifts.”
Tenev explains that Robinhood has a very large crypto business in retail market share, and calls it a “dark horse in the space.” On the AI front, he explains that the financial industry has not embraced the technology, adding, “I think it’s incumbent on a technology company that started with that DNA of being technology-first to make sure that the financial industry can navigate that transition successfully and safely.”
Ronbinhood revealed in its second quarter earnings that the platform’s cryptocurrency revenue grew 161% year-over-year.
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This post was written by Melanie Riehl