- Robinhood earned $252 million from crypto trading last quarter.
- Crypto trading accounted for more than 25% of the company’s net revenue last quarter.
- Fintechs and crypto shops are vying for mindshare among retail traders.
Robinhood did not escape crypto’s market downturn in the first three months of 2025.
The retail trading platform recorded $252 million in crypto trading revenue between January and March, a 30% decline from the previous quarter. The significant dip tracks the slump that saw the cryptocurrency market dip by an almost equivalent proportion earlier in the year.
Amid the downturn, CEO Vlad Tenev says the company is looking to diversify.
“It’s going to go up and down in terms of trading volume,” Tenev said about crypto trading during Wednesday’s earnings call. “We’re diversifying the business outside of the crypto business, which will make us less reliant on crypto transaction volumes.”
Crypto trading volume on Robinhood fell to $46 billion in the first quarter, from $71 billion at the end of 2024.
Robinhood had a banner closeout last year, with crypto sales rocketing 700% and the company recording a healthy profit.
However, the crypto party turned sour with cryptocurrency prices dropping by an average of 30% by the end of March. Market activity also nosedived, slumping by a third to $104 billion in daily volume compared to the heights of late last year.
US President Donald Trump’s tariffs on some 90 countries have been identified as a catalyst behind the downturn.
Despite the slump, crypto trading volume still accounted for more than a quarter of Robinhood’s $927 million total net revenue for last quarter, a 50% uptick from the period in 2024.
Still, it fell short of the $1 billion revenue milestone achieved between October and December.
Robinhood began offering crypto trading in February 2018 and is part of a cast of fintech firms, including eToro, Revolut, and PayPal, that have muscled their way into the crypto trading market.
The UK-Israeli online broker eToro lists 29 cryptocurrencies for trading, while PayPal has its own stablecoin.
Last week, UK neobank Revolut reported a record annual profit of $1.5 billion, driven largely by its crypto trading business.
Some market analysts say fintechs have an edge over crypto-native platforms like Coinbase and Kraken, especially in regulatory compliance and name recognition among users. Revolut has a UK banking license.
But crypto-natives like Kraken say they welcome the increased competition. Earlier in April, Kraken announced plans to offer stock trading to its users.
For fintechs and crypto shops alike, the trajectory appears to be in the opposite direction. While fintechs pivot to crypto trading, crypto exchanges are looking to offer access to traditional investment vehicles like equities and exchange-traded funds.
But the goal is the same ― to be a one-stop shop for asset trading for their users and grow their revenues and earnings.
Osato Avan-Nomayo is our Nigeria-based DeFi correspondent. He covers DeFi and tech. Got a tip? Please contact him at osato@dlnews.com.
