By John McCrank

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Robinhood Markets Inc (NASDAQ:) said on Wednesday it plans to begin testing cryptocurrency wallets next month, with a broader rollout in early 2022, allowing its users to move supported digital currencies in and out of their brokerage accounts.

Menlo Park-based brokerage permits the purchase, sale, and holding of certain crypto currencies, including bitcoin and dogecoin. The retail brokerage also allows for equities transactions to be made.

Customers of Robinhood, which benefited from a boom in retail trading during the pandemic, have long asked for crypto wallets, which would allow them to participate more broadly in blockchain-based ecosystems, such as buying virtual assets like non-fungible tokens (NTFs) on the network.

Aparna Chennapragada (chief product officer at Robinhood) said that this is “the natural next step when we think of democratizing financial services for all” and would allow more people to participate in the emerging markets.

Chennapragada explained that they plan to conduct a survey of its crypto-trading users (which make up about 60% of the app’s 21.3million active users) and select a small number of respondents to start testing new wallets and providing feedback.

She said that Robinhood customers will be able to join a waiting list in order to gain future access. This is part of the gradual rollout.

Company said that the wallets would include security features, such as email verification, phone verification, identity verification, and multi-factor authentication to protect coins against hacks.

Chennapragada stated that one of their main goals was to ensure the wallet is safe and secure.

Robinhood stated that it will maintain 0% commissions on crypto trades after the wallets launch.