Robinhood’s ‘Merry Degens’ Can’t Save $HOOD From a Crypto Hangover

“Rob from the poor, give to the house…” - Robin Hood Vlad Tenev, probably

Letting people bet on the World Series still isn’t enough to distract investors from a pretty mid quarter. 

Shares of Robinhood fell fell 4% after hours Tuesday after Ken Griffin’s lil b*tch (read: CEO Vlad Tenev) face-planted on profit. Per LSEG, HOOD earned 51 cents a share vs. the 56 cents analysts were looking for, and net income slid to $468M from $556M a year ago. Revenue, meanwhile, landed right on the nose at $1.42B (up 12% YoY). Tough crowd.

As for the gambling side of the business, it is doing just fine. Transaction-based revenue rose 19% to $867M, thanks mostly to event contracts revenue going parabolic (+500%) (probably because the Venn diagram of day traders and online sports gambling addicts is almost a perfect circle at this point). Options revenue grew a girthy 31% to $399M, and equities chipped in another 41% to $121M.

Oh, and Vlad doesn’t just take your bets anymore. When Robinhood’s prediction markets hub launched last year, Kalshi powered the contracts. Now HOOD co-owns its own exchange, Rothera, with Susquehanna. Fun fact: Susquehanna is one of the biggest market-making rivals of Ken’s Citadel Securities, which happens to be one of the firms paying Robinhood for your trades (hoes ain’t loyal, Ken). Rothera hit $100M in annualized revenue in its first full quarter.

Crypto bros been real quiet lately…

Robinhood’s crypto revenue fell off a cliff (think: -55% to $120M) as prices slumped and spot trading dried up. Which is how transaction revenue came in under the $879M the Street wanted. Coinbase reports Thursday, so… godspeed, Brian.

Per new CFO Shiv Verma (hired in February, just in time for crypto winter), event contracts on crypto movements did well in the quarter, giving investors another way to express a view on crypto despite the slump. Spoken like a true bookie…

To be fair, Vlad’s been trying to turn the brokerage app into a broader financial services platform for a while now, with stuff like wealth management and subscriptions. And customers are still putting out. Net deposits hit $15.7B in the quarter, a 17% annualized growth rate, and a cool $71B over the past year.

It’s just that “financial services” is doing a lot of heavy lifting when the two things carrying the quarter are options and football Sundays. Vlad said on the call that he wants to “make everyone an owner,” which, of bags, mostly.

Anyway, has Vlad considered halting the buying selling of $HOOD? (We won’t ever forget, Vlad.) 

Until next time, friends…

 

At the time of publishing, Stocks.News holds positions in Robinhood as mentioned in the article.