(Reuters) – Online brokerage Robinhood said on Thursday that 9.5 million users traded cryptocurrency on its platform during the first quarter of 2021, soaring nearly six-fold from the previous quarter.
Cyrptocurrencies are finding wider acceptance with a growing list of firms investing in or holding bitcoin, including electric-car maker Tesla Inc, BlackRock Inc, the world’s largest asset manager, and payments companies Square and PayPal.
The price of bitcoin, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency, rose more than 300% in 2020 and last month hit a record high of $61,781.83, but has since come off its highs.
Robinhood currently allows customers to buy, sell and hold cryptocurrencies, and had said it plans to give customers the ability to deposit and withdraw them for transfers to other wallets as well.
(Reporting by Munsif Vengattil in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D’Silva and Vinay Dwivedi)
