Robinhood Misses Estimates as Crypto and Chain Offset Pressure

Robinhood reported record revenue of $1.42 billion, below the $1.43 billion estimate, while EPS was $0.51 versus $0.55 forecast, according to Tuesday’s results summarized by Morning Minute writer Tyler Warner.

Crypto revenue rose to $120 million from $100 million in Q2, a 20% sequential increase, but remained 55% below $268 million a year earlier. Trading volume reached $50 billion, including $29 billion through Bitstamp.

Event-contract revenue climbed to $173 million from $156 million on a record 16.4 billion contracts traded, more than seven times the year-earlier level. Prediction markets and crypto now supply more than one-fifth of Robinhood revenue, from products that barely existed two years ago.

How did crypto perform inside Robinhood?

The results showed a widening business mix beyond equity trading. Crypto revenue grew sequentially, event contracts generated more revenue than crypto, and Bitstamp accounted for 58% of the reported $50 billion in trading volume. The figures also underscore crypto’s continued decline from its year-earlier peak, when Robinhood generated $268 million.

Why did Robinhood Chain stand out?

Robinhood Chain launched July 1 and, by late August, generated more fees over a rolling 30-day period than Ethereum or Base, Tenev said. The chain outpaced internal forecasts and required additional staffing as builders told Robinhood it could do more.

Tenev said: “You should expect to see us really ramping the investment, because you just don’t see growth of a new ecosystem like this. It’s an uncommon thing. A lot of chains have launched over the past few months that have had an incomparably small level of traction compared to this. So we’re doubling down.”

Tenev also framed tokenized equities as software-like infrastructure: “Imagine if you take a stock token, make it fully programmable just like software. What can you do? Can you have tokenized options contracts?”

Long.xyz pairs meme coins against tokenized NVDA and TSLA shares, while Orbio uses fees paid in tokenized Nvidia to fund AI inference credits. Neither project began as a Robinhood creation. Robinhood Crypto backed Long and Priors in two Tuesday posts, signaling support for third-party products built on tokenized equities.

Post-call snapshots showed sharp repricing. The recap described a 20%-50% group gain, with Pons +18%, AI +33% and Orbio +57%; its tracker showed Pons +18% at $195 million, Cashcat +1% at $100 million, AI +32% at $69 million, Orbio +60%, Boner +40% and Priors +80%.

How are banks and tokenized shares changing?

• Intel, Oracle, IBM and IonQ joined issuers objecting to tokenized versions of their shares on the OKX-ICE venue, taking the number of objectors to 26 in 12 days.
• Google opened a private preview of a crypto custody service for banks. It splits signing keys into fragments across separate environments and runs every transaction through a policy engine before signing. Alphabet already uses the system for its assets on Ethereum and Solana, with commercial availability targeted for early 2027.
• Ripple secured final approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for Ripple National Trust Bank. The federally supervised national trust bank will hold and act as collateral trustee for reserves backing the $2.6 billion RLUSD stablecoin.
• Robinhood went live with RLUSD on Robinhood Chain and Bitstamp. It will run global cash operations on Ripple Treasury and use RLUSD on the XRP Ledger for institutional settlement across Bitstamp.
• Bithumb, South Korea’s second-largest exchange, confirmed that an outside party accessed its internal staff groupware and leaked personal information. The disclosure came the same day two major Korean brokerages reported their own intrusions.

What did the broader market show?

• Crypto majors rose 2%-4% ahead of the FOMC meeting. BTC traded around $81,200-$81,300; ETH gained 2% to $2,360, SOL 3% to $103, HYPE 5% to $81.40 and ZEC 4% to $1,300. BCH and ZRO rose 6%, while CC gained 5%.
• Bitcoin ETFs drew $176 million in net inflows Tuesday, while ETH ETFs recorded $60 million in net outflows; STRC traded at $99.53. Oil held at $101 and gold rose 0.2% to $4,050. Stock futures were mixed, with the Dow -0.23% and Nasdaq +0.4%.
• Meme coins advanced: DOGE and SHIB gained 4%, PEPE 16%, PENGU 5%, TRUMP 3%, SPX 2% and BONK 4%.
• On Solana, Something rose 35x, GTA6 50%, SI 60% and Sapling 280%; Stonk gained 20% to $160 million.
• Among NFTs, Punks rose 1% to 30.5 ETH, BAYC fell 2.5% to 6.05 ETH and Pudgy gained 2% to 2.53 ETH; Deafbeef rose 31% and Identity 11%.

Which protocols drew regulatory attention?

• Pump.fun led on-chain protocols with $1.88 million in daily revenue, followed by Hyperliquid at $1.65 million and Polymarket at $366,000.
• Circle began piloting USDC settlement within Colombia’s instant-payments network with ACI Worldwide. The integration uses Bre-B’s real-time account-to-account rails rather than replacing them.
• Polymarket said it investigated dozens of midterm-election bets for insider trading and manipulation and referred at least two cases to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

The FOMC decision is the immediate market checkpoint. Beyond it, the CFTC cases, the 26 issuer objections on OKX-ICE and Google’s early-2027 custody target provide concrete tests for whether banks and public companies will accommodate tokenized assets.