Robinhood crypto trading volume cools from post-election surge

Robinhood experienced a big boon as crypto prices soared late last year amid the U.S. presidential election, but enthusiasm has waned a bit in the early goings of 2025. 

The commission-free brokerage said Tuesday that crypto trading volumes fell to $14.4 billion in February. That's a 29% drop from January's $20 billion on notional trading volume. It's a steep drop compared to equity trading volumes, which declined just 1% month over month to $142.9 billion.

Still, the data show retail traders' massive appetite for crypto following bitcoin's meteoric rise to $100,000 amid President Donald Trump's election victory. The $34.4 billion in crypto volume for the first two months of 2025 is nearly equal to Robinhood's second-best three-month stretch last year.

After steadily dropping throughout the year — from $36 billion in the first quarter to $21.5 billion in the second quarter and $14.4 billion in the third quarter — crypto trading volume on Robinhood surged 400% year-over-year to $70 billion in the fourth quarter of 2024.

"Platforms like Robinhood have been a staple in measuring retail participation within crypto markets," The Block's Research team wrote last month. "While memecoin listings appear to drive short-term user engagement and speculation, their typically volatile nature typically impacts long-term trading volumes. The next quarter's performance will be crucial in determining whether this uptick represents a temporary surge driven by a speculative interest or a longer-term shift in retail investor preferences."

Following the close of an investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission without any enforcement action, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev said on Feb. 27 that tokenization is a means to "unleash true power of the crypto revolution."

"As we integrate Bitstamp, it allows us access to the exchange market, which is an institutional market," Tenev said at the time. "We really see an opportunity there to drive the same Robinhood effect that we've brought to retail to the institutional space with crypto."