On Tuesday, Christine Brown, the chief operating officer of Robinhood Crypto, said that Robinhood is not in a rush to add new cryptocurrency coins to its trading platform, dampening hopes that it will list the popular meme coin Shiba Inu.
Brown declined to speak about the prospect of listing specific coins like Shiba Inu, but said that the firm is wary of listing volatile coins that might be dangerous for consumers or violate regulatory compliance.
“Our strategy is a little bit different than a lot of the other players out there who are just racing to list as many assets as possible right now,” Brown said at a Crypto Goes Mainstream event hosted by crypto publication Decrypt on Tuesday. “We think that the short-term gain we might get is not worth the long-term tradeoff for our users.”
Brown’s comments may not be welcome news to the SHIB Army, a devoted group of Shiba Inu coin investors and enthusiasts that supports the coin and has clamored to get it listed on Robinhood’s crypto trading platform. On change.org, a petition asking Robinhood to list Shiba Inu coin has garnered over 525,00 signatures.
Some Shiba Inu followers on Twitter said that Shiba Inu is strong enough to flourish without a Robinhood listing, while others appeared to hold out hope that Robinhood will eventually list the coin.
Robinhood may benefit from an immediate influx of trading if it listed the coin. But as Robinhood recently learned after listing dog-coin competitor Dogecoin, a potential Shiba Inu–driven windfall may be short-lived given the coin’s volatility. Shiba Inu’s price has soared nearly 70,000,000% in the past year, giving it a current market valuation of $29 billion. But Shiba Inu’s coin price has dropped 37% after hitting its all-time peak two weeks ago, allowing Dogecoin to regain its title of the world’s most valuable dog-themed meme token.
“Due to uncertain and volatile market conditions, [listing SHIB] might result in significant losses over a short period of time, and possibly liquidation problems in adverse events of sudden price drops or trading halts,” Daniel Khoo, a research analyst at blockchain analytics platform Nansen, recently told Fortune when asked about Robinhood’s wariness toward listing Shiba Inu.
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