Robinhood reports steep 30% decline in crypto trading revenues year-on-year

Quick Take

Robinhood’s cryptocurrency trading revenue hit $38 million during the first quarter of 2023, compared with $54 million the previous year.

Robinhood reported cryptocurrency trading revenues declined 30% during the first quarter of this year to $38 million. During the same quarter in 2022, the company reported trading revenues of $54 million.

The drop in revenues comes despite a rebound in the prices of bitcoin and ethereum in recent months.

In the fourth quarter of last year, Robinhood’s cryptocurrency transaction revenue slipped 24% to $39 million, far below the company's bumper second quarter of 2021 when revenues for digital-asset trading hit $233 million.

Robinhood also reported that its crypto assets "under custody" dipped by 42% year-on-year to $12 billion.

A look at Robinhood's transaction-based revenue from the company's earnings presentation.

Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev, however, has been persistently bullish about the long-term prospects for crypto. In March, the company rolled out a digital wallet, which supports both the Polygon and Ethereum networks, to its iOS customers around the world. There is currently a waitlist for Robinhood's Android wallet, which is supposed to become available later this year.

In the wake of the collapse of FTX, which caused many users to lose money, Robinhood has tried positioning itself as a safe and secure platform for people who want to trade crypto. At the end of last year Tenev said his company gained some market share after FTX's demise.

(Updates with chart from earnings presentation, details on crypto under custody.)