Robinhood acquires British crypto firm Ziglu to push expansion plans

Robinhood, a major cryptocurrency-friendly stock trading app, is pushing global expansion by acquiring the United Kingdom-based crypto asset firm Ziglu.

Robinhood officially announced Tuesday that it had signed a deal to acquire Ziglu, subject to regulatory approvals and other closing conditions. The firm declined to disclose the size of the deal to Cointelegraph.

“Subject to regulatory approval, in the near term, nothing will change for current Ziglu customers. Longer-term, we’ll integrate Ziglu more fully into Robinhood, bring the Robinhood brand overseas and work to expand operations beyond the U.K. into Europe,” the spokesperson for Robinhood said.

The acquisition aims to help Robinhood accelerate its international expansion and finally enter markets both in the United Kingdom and across Europe. The move comes in line with Robinhood’s renewed expansion efforts this year after the platform previously aborted its ambitious expansion plans in countries like the United Kingdom back in 2020.

This aged well… https://t.co/OCQNby71Cwhttps://t.co/YgjYSHVGru

— Robinhood (@RobinhoodApp) April 19, 2022

As Cointelegraph reported, Ziglu was founded by former Barclays technology head and Starling bank co-founder Mark Hipperson in 2020. The firm provides a digital platform that enables customers to buy and sell eleven cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and others. The Ziglu platform also allows users to yield rewards and pay for services using a debit card.

Robinhood is a major online brokerage known for offering a commission-free investing and trading platform in the United States. Robinhood became widely known in the crypto community after the company rolled out trading of major cryptocurrencies like BTC and ETH in 2018.

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Despite some controversy around its trading policies and the increased attention from U.S regulators last year, Robinhood has been pushing development recently. The company rolled out its digital wallet feature for 2 million additional users in early April 2022, announcing plans to integrate the Lightning Network.