Robinhood's Q1 Crypto Trading Volume Surged 224% as SEC Action Looms
Shares in the popular trading platform were higher by 7% after the company topped first quarter revenue and earnings estimates.
May 8, 2024 at 8:37 p.m. UTC:format(webp)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/coindesk/VDHXA3YH6REPPPUYQ4BMUBAR6I.jpg)
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Robinhood (HOOD) saw a first-quarter notional crypto trading volume of $36 billion, up 224% from year-ago levels.
That led to a 232% increase in crypto-related a revenue to $126 million, a primary factor, said the company, in driving overall first quarter transaction-based revenue up 59% year-over-year to $329 million.
Robinhood had $26.2 billion in user's crypto in custody as of March 31, a 78% jump from the end of 2023.
The larger transaction revenue due to crypto trading isn't surprising as another publicly traded crypto peer, Coinbase (COIN), also reported "blowout" first quarter numbers due to improving crypto market conditions.
Robinhood also handily beat its first-quarter sales and earnings estimates. The company reported $618 million in revenue in the quarter, ahead of analyst estimates of $552.7 million, according to FactSet data. First quarter earnings were $0.18 per share, topping the average analyst expectation of $0.06.
Shares of Robinhood were up about 7% in post-market trading on Wednesday, while Coinbase shares were down slightly. HOOD stock has risen about 40% for the year, while COIN has gained 22%.
The company last week disclosed receipt of a Wells Notice from the U.S. Securities and Exchange commission for its crypto unit.
Robinhood's CFO Jason Warnick said during an earnings conference call that "we're, of course, disappointed to have received the notice." However, he noted that the Well Notice has no impact on the customer accounts and that it is "business as usual" for the company's crypto arm.
"We've been very conservative in our approach in terms of points listed and services offered. And we're a highly regulated company and have applied the same legal and compliance standards we use for our brokerage to the way we run our crypto. So it's disappointing to see more regulation by enforcement," Warnick added.
UPDATE (May 8, 21:27 UTC): Updates to add CFO comments from earnings conference call.
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Aoyon Ashraf is managing editor with more than a decade of experience in covering equity markets