Robinhood Planning Confidential IPO As Early As March: Report (UPDATE)

Robinhood Markets Inc is moving forward with its IPO plans.

What Happened: The fintech startup is planning to file confidentially for an initial public offering, possibly as early as March, Bloomberg has reported, citing sources close to the brokerage.

The decision is not yet final, the sources said. 

Reuters reported earlier in December on Robinhood's IPO plans, saying it would come with a valuation of $20 billion and assistance from Goldman Sachs Group Inc GS.

Why It Matters: Robinhood would enter a hot market that it has helped fuel.

Robinhood's decision to suspend the purchase of Reddit-fueled stocks such as GameStop Corp. GME and AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc AMC during the so-called meme-stock frenzy triggered lawsuits over the last month. The trading platform drew a lot of heat, fueling conspiracy theories of being in cahoots with hedge funds that had shorted the stocks. The company since has had to repeatedly defend itself — including in front of a congressional hearing — saying a spike in clearinghouse collateral requirements was behind the curbs.

According to Reuters, the company has said that it's in settlement talks with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority over temporary curbs to the trading of certain stocks, as well as its policies on options trading.

Earlier this month, Robinhood said it is planning to allow its customers to withdraw and deposit cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin BTC/USD and the meme-themed Dogecoin DOGE/USD. Currently, users can buy, sell and hold cryptocurrencies, but are not permitted to move the cryptocurrencies to other wallets. 

(Story updated to reflect correct status of Robinhood's plans to allow cryptocurrency withdrawals on the platform.)