Robinhood Now Earns More From Bets Than From Crypto

All news is rigorously fact-checked and reviewed by leading blockchain experts and seasoned industry insiders.

• Prediction markets now bring Robinhood more revenue than crypto trading.
• The company posted record revenue while profit declined.
• Robinhood earns less on every crypto dollar traded than a year ago.
• A single family contribution inflated October’s deposit figures.

Contracts tied to the outcome of real-world events earned Robinhood roughly 44% more than cryptocurrency trading in the third quarter of 2026. The US trading platform booked $173 million from prediction markets, while crypto revenue shrank 55% to $120 million. Total revenue hit a record $1.42 billion, yet net income fell 14%, and the stock slipped in after-hours trading once the results came out on Tuesday.

Prediction markets let users buy contracts whose value depends on whether a specific event happens, such as an election result, a sports match or a company’s earnings. A year ago the product was still an experiment for Robinhood. It is now the company’s third-largest source of transaction revenue.

Costs Rise 16%, Revenue 12%

Revenue grew 12% year over year, but spending grew faster. Total operating expenses climbed 16% to $739 million, and in its earnings release Robinhood pointed to credit loss provisions, marketing, new business lines and costs linked to Rothera and the government-backed Trump Accounts program. The quarter fell short of analyst expectations, which had called for $1.44 billion in revenue and $0.56 in earnings per share.

Source: Robinhood

Much of the gap between the two profit measures comes from a $67 million unrealized loss, tied mainly to the Robinhood Ventures Fund I investment vehicle, which shaved roughly $0.07 off earnings per share. Strip out such non-operating items and adjusted EPS of $0.60 sits just 3% below last year’s level, so the core business weakened far less than the headline accounting figure suggests.

$173M From Bets vs. $120M From Crypto

Source: Robinhood

Event contract revenue came in more than six times higher than a year earlier, and the number of contracts traded rose more than sevenfold to 16.4 billion. Rothera, Robinhood’s exchange for these contracts, passed a $100 million annualized revenue run rate in its first full quarter. That figure projects what the exchange would earn over a year at its current pace and overlaps with the reported $173 million, so the two numbers should not be added together.

The traditional brokerage held up well too. Options revenue rose 31% to $399 million and equities revenue jumped 41% to $121 million on record notional volume of $992 billion. Margin lending, the money customers borrow against their portfolios, grew 59% to $22.1 billion, which points to experienced, high-frequency traders driving the activity. Those same traders tend to pull back first when markets calm down, leaving several revenue lines exposed to the same swing in volatility.

Volume Down 38%, Revenue Down 55%

Crypto trading volume fell 38% to $50 billion while crypto revenue dropped 55%, meaning Robinhood now earns less on every dollar its customers trade. Dividing the reported totals gives a take rate of about 0.24% of volume, down from roughly 0.33% a year ago. The company does not disclose such a rate officially, and the release does not say whether a shift in the assets traded, customer behavior or lower fees explains the decline.

Source: Robinhood

Robinhood’s blockchain infrastructure moved the other way. In its first quarter on mainnet, Robinhood Chain recorded more than $80 billion in decentralized exchange volume and over $50 million in fees, and the company says the network ranks among the top five by chain revenue and volume. The release does not reveal how much of those fees actually flows to Robinhood, so they cannot be treated as corporate revenue.

The company also keeps pushing its crypto business abroad. It launched crypto trading in the United Kingdom and secured approval from Dubai’s financial regulator, the DFSA, to offer ten asset classes, including crypto, stocks and ETFs, with the rollout planned for 2027. On October 27, Robinhood also announced a partnership with Ripple covering Ripple’s payments infrastructure and its RLUSD stablecoin, though any revenue contribution remains unclear for now.

Nearly One in Five Customers Pays for Gold

Platform assets rose 19% to $396 billion, and net deposits for the quarter reached $15.7 billion. The Robinhood Gold subscription now counts 5.2 million members, or 18% of customers, with adoption near 40% among new sign-ups. The banking unit gathered almost $5 billion in deposits from more than 350,000 customers, while the Gold Card has 1.3 million cardholders and over $19 billion in annualized payment volume. These services generate recurring revenue that depends far less on the mood of the market.

Management trimmed the top end of its 2026 adjusted expense outlook from $2.775 billion to $2.750 billion, citing efficiency gains. The guidance leaves out credit loss provisions, pending acquisition costs and potential regulatory expenses, so total costs could still come in higher.

Average Target of $139 Before the Results

The ratings below predate the earnings release and do not yet reflect any reaction to the quarter:

• Consensus of 23 analysts – Strong Buy (20 Buy, 3 Hold), average price target around $139.
• Rosenblatt (analyst Chris Brendler) – Buy, price target $135, set when the firm initiated coverage.

$6B From the Dells in October Deposits

The next few reports should show whether prediction markets can keep growing once volumes normalize and US regulators settle the rules for them. Robinhood said October net deposits had already topped $13 billion, but about $6 billion came from a contribution by the family of Michael Dell, the founder of Dell Technologies, to Trump Accounts, the government-backed investment accounts for children. Without that one-off sum, inflows from ordinary customers at the start of the fourth quarter are close to half the headline figure.

Source