Vlad Tenev, CEO of brokerage platform Robinhood, said the company is planning to grow its crypto team "hugely" this year.
- Speaking in a video Q&A with customers, Tenev said Robinhood wants to "make a huge investment and hire a ton of people" for its crypto business.
- He referred to the recent spike in demand the platform has witnessed with 6 million new customers trading crypto for the first time this year just by the middle of February.
- The Robinhood CEO had been answering a question from a customer who wished to see the platform "take a bite out of Coinbase."
- "We hear you on that," Tenev responded, adding that the platform's focus is to ensure the system is stable and reliable to be able to respond to exponential growth.
- Robinhood announced Wednesday it has hired former Google executive Apanra Chennapragada as its first chief product officer.