Robinhood’s Higher Crypto Revenue Could be Positive for Coinbase Earnings

• Robinhood saw more crypto trading volume in the fourth quarter.

• The company beat both earnings and sales estimates for the quarter.

• Its peer, Coinbase, is reporting this week and could see similar results.

Robinhood (HOOD), the popular trading platform, said in a statement that its crypto revenue rose 10% versus a year earlier in the fourth quarter, reaching $43 million, as more users traded crypto. This could bode well for crypto trading platform peer Coinbase (COIN), where trading volume is one of the key contributors of revenue.

The company said in a presentation that the notional volume of the crypto trading it handled was up 89% compared to the previous quarter due to more customers placing a higher volumes of trades.

The higher volume isn’t a surprise as prices in the digital asset market surged on optimism that spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) would get approved in the U.S. (That did come to pass in January.)

Robinhood said that its transaction-based revenues for the quarter were up 8% from the previous year, mainly driven by crypto trading. Coinbase is reporting its earnings on Thursday and may see similar results for its trading volume – all else being equal. COIN shares were up slightly in the post-market trading on Tuesday.

Robinhood also expects to win more crypto trading market share this year and expand internationally. Most recently, it started letting European Union customers trade crypto on its platform.

“2023 was a strong year as our product velocity continued to accelerate, our trading market share increased, and we started to expand globally,” Vlad Tenev, CEO and co-founder of Robinhood, said in a statement. “And we’re off to an even better start in 2024, as we’ve already brought in more Funded Customers and Net Deposits through the first half of Q1 than we did in all of Q4 2023,” he added.

The trading platform also said that its overall fourth-quarter revenue was $471 million, beating the average analyst estimate of $454.7 million, according to FactSet data. Meanwhile, earnings per share was $0.03, beating the estimate for a $0.01 loss per share.

The company’s shares rose about 15% on Tuesday after the results were released. For the year, the stock has fallen nearly 7% versus the S&P 500’s 4.4% advance.