Robinhood’s crypto trade volume rose 10% in February

Robinhood’s crypto notional trading volumes in February rose 10% from January, matching a level seen only one other month since the middle of 2022.

The $6.5 billion worth of crypto volumes on the investment platform last month equaled those seen in December. That mark hadn’t been reached since May 2022, when Robinhood notched $6.6 billion worth of crypto-related trades.

Robinhood’s crypto trading volumes hit a low point last September, at $1.2 billion. The company’s transaction-based revenues on cryptocurrencies declined to $23 million during the third quarter — a 55% quarter-over-quarter drop.

But transaction-related crypto revenue jumped to $43 million during the fourth quarter, Robinhood revealed last month. The spike in that segment helped its over transaction-based revenues rise 8% year-over-year to $200 million.

The higher crypto trading volumes come after the launch of US spot bitcoin ETFs in January. Trading of those funds was making up about 5% of Robinhood’s overall crypto trading volumes — with spot trading continuing to command 95% of the volumes, Chief Financial Officer Jason Warnick said on the company’s February earnings call.

The 10-fund bitcoin ETF segment has so far notched net inflows exceeding $11 billion. They collectively tallied nearly $10 billion in trading volume on March 5, which marked a record.

“We think it increases overall market interest in crypto and also brings liquidity to the market,” Warnick said of the new products. “So, net-net, we’re really pleased with the bitcoin ETFs.”

The improved volumes also follow Robinhood expanding its crypto trading offering to the European Union. The launch was set to grow the company’s addressable market by hundreds of millions of customers, Robinhood CEO Tenev added at the time.

Tenev said on the company’s earnings call last month that Robinhood so far had tens of thousands of international customers.

It also follows Robinhood Connect, the wallet on-ramp launched in April 2023, integrating with self-custodial wallet app MetaMask last month.

“I think it really shows the investments that we’ve made in our platform,” Tenev said on the February earnings call. “We think we can be the leading player in bridging the worlds of traditional finance and crypto, so there’s a lot more where that came from.”

The latest crypto volumes don’t reflect trading within the last couple weeks, during which bitcoin (BTC) has repeatedly hit new all-time highs. BTC’s price stood at about $72,200 at 11:30 am ET — up about 45% from a month ago.

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