Gemini Retail Trading Volume Falls to a Three-Year Low

Daniel Okafor

Gemini’s quarterly retail trading volume fell to a three-year low, according to the exchange’s reported figures, while revenue rose 7% from the previous quarter to $13.4 million.

Institutional revenue more than doubled. Retail traders nevertheless remained Gemini’s largest source of exchange revenue, contributing nearly three-quarters of the total.

The divergence shows that lower retail activity did not translate into a quarterly revenue decline. Gemini’s institutional business expanded even as its retail trading engine weakened.

How did Gemini’s revenue mix change?

Institutional revenue provided the clearest source of growth, more than doubling from the previous quarter. Retail traders supplied most of the exchange’s revenue despite the three-year low in trading volume.

That combination gives Gemini two sources of support when retail participation softens. Institutional expansion can lift revenue, but retail traders still account for the majority of exchange income.

Is prediction-market growth offsetting weaker trading?

The softer trading picture was not confined to Gemini. Several crypto exchanges reported reduced crypto trading activity in the most recent quarter.

• Coinbase: The exchange reported softer retail and institutional activity. Consumer spot trading volume fell 9% from the previous quarter to $23.4 billion.
• Robinhood: Crypto revenue fell 55% year on year to $120 million, while event-contract revenue rose sixfold to $173 million.

Coinbase CFO Alesia Haas said: “continued growth in prediction markets helped offset softer crypto trading activity.”

Prediction markets and event contracts emerged in these results as counterweights to weaker crypto trading. Their financial impact varied considerably: Gemini Predictions generated $796,000 in quarterly revenue, while Robinhood reported $173 million from event contracts.

Can Gemini Predictions offset its trading declines?

Gemini Predictions generated $796,000 in revenue, up 52% from the previous quarter. Gemini said the business remained too small to offset declines elsewhere.

The figures leave prediction markets as a contributor to Gemini’s revenue mix rather than a replacement for its core exchange business. Treating faster prediction-market growth as a complete hedge against weaker crypto trading would go beyond what the reported numbers show.

What is driving stronger prediction-market activity?

Gemini reported stronger prediction-market activity heading into the fourth quarter. Average daily traders in October ran about 50% above the third-quarter average.

Nearly a third of new prediction traders were new to Gemini, more than double the proportion recorded in the third quarter.

Those measures show momentum on two fronts: a larger daily participant base and a higher share of newcomers to Gemini’s platform.

What would the Apex agreement change?

Gemini is seeking to distribute its event contracts through other platforms. An August nonbinding agreement with Apex Fintech Solutions would make Gemini Titan the exclusive venue for crypto event contracts distributed through Apex’s futures brokerage to its brokerage customers.

The proposal would create an additional distribution route for Gemini’s event contracts, but it remains subject to definitive agreements. Gemini Titan’s proposed exclusive role therefore remains unsettled.

Gemini is set to host a Q3 earnings call on Friday. The call is the next scheduled checkpoint on whether stronger prediction-market participation can offset further retail weakness and whether the Apex distribution plan advances toward definitive agreements.