Robinhood Crypto, a subsidiary of the namesake trading platform, announced the return of support for Solana (SOL) and Cardano (ADA) tokens for U.S. users. The company also added XRP and the meme coin PepeCoin (PEPE). This decision marks a policy revision following restrictions imposed last year.
Why Tokens Were Removed and Why They Returned
In 2023, Robinhood ceased support for SOL, ADA, and Polygon (MATIC) due to pressure from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The regulator accused exchanges, including Coinbase and Binance, of offering unregistered securities, listing these tokens among others. This led the platform to mitigate risks by limiting its roster of supported assets.
Now, a year later, Robinhood has reinstated SOL and ADA, which some link to a potential shift in regulatory policy following Trump’s election victory. The addition of XRP was made possible by Ripple Labs’ partial court win, where a federal judge ruled that XRP is not considered a security in specific types of transactions.
A New Meme Coin and the Impact of Listings on the Market
Among the newly added assets is PepeCoin (PEPE), a meme coin that emerged during the spring 2023 meme coin craze. PEPE has since solidified its position as one of the largest meme coins by market capitalization ($9.8 billion), trailing only Dogecoin ($59.1 billion) and Shiba Inu ($15.3 billion). Following its listing, PEPE’s price surged over 40%, with an 80% increase in the past 24 hours.
Cardano and Solana, while seeing less dramatic reactions, also experienced notable growth:
- SOL rose by 6.36% to $220 in the last 24 hours,
- ADA gained 8.81%, now trading at $0.57 per coin,
- XRP increased by 7.4% to $0.71.
Currently, the only previously delisted token not reinstated by Robinhood is Polygon’s token. Polygon has been underperforming recently and dropped out of the top 10 by market capitalization, now sitting at 36th. In September, the project announced a rebranding, renaming MATIC to POL, but the move had little impact on the token’s price.
Do you think Robinhood will reintroduce MATIC/POL to the platform?