After six months of aggressive lobbying by its members, Robinhood has finally listed the Shiba Inu cryptocurrency for trading. And the crypto is soaring as a result.
The launch of the meme coin Thursday was part of a larger expansion of the trading app’s crypto offerings. Solana (SOL), Polygon (MATIC) and Compound (COMP) are also now listed on the site. Each of the tokens was up sharply in early trading Tuesday.
Shiba Inu was up more than 21% as of 10:00 a.m. ET. Solana saw gains of 5%. Compound jumped nearly 7%. And Polygon’s value was nearly 8% higher.
“We’re excited to add more choices for our customers,” said Steve Quirk, chief brokerage officer at Robinhood in a statement. “We have a rigorous framework in place to help us evaluate assets for listing, and we remain committed to providing a safe and educational crypto platform.”
News of the additional offerings comes days after Robinhood made its crypto wallet available to 2 million waitlisted users, allowing them to more directly interact with cryptocurrencies. Members can use the wallet to buy NFTs, send crypto to other crypto traders with no withdrawal fees, but it can’t hold NFTs and is limited to cryptos that Robinhood trades.
In addition to today’s additions, the platform allows users to buy and sell Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin SV, Dogecoin, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, and Litecoin.
Robinhood was resistant to Shiba Inu, in particular, because of the volatility surrounding the crypto, analysts suggest. Year-to-date Shiba Inu is down 19.5%, with several spikes and valleys. Investors have found other ways to invest in the memecoin, though, likely making it inevitable that Robinhood would begin trading.
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