Robinhood’s crypto trading surges, as overall growth slows

NEW YORK (AP) — After helping a new generation of investors get into stocks, Robinhood is increasingly doing the same for cryptocurrencies.

More than $4 of every $10 that Robinhood Markets Inc. made in revenue during the spring came just from customers trading bitcoin, dogecoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Robinhood also said Wednesday that it lost $501.7 million, or $2.16 per share, compared with a profit of $57.6 million, or 9 cents per share, in last year’s second quarter.

The loss was no surprise after the company had earlier given preliminary estimated results for the quarter. The company’s slowdown in revenue growth was also expected: It more than halved to 131% from 309% in the first three months of the year.

But the degree of the sharp rise in crypto’s importance to Robinhood’s business was striking. Cryptocurrencies made up 41% of all of Robinhood’s $565.3 million in revenue. That’s up from 17% in the first three months of the year and from just 3% at the start of last year. The spring marked the first quarter for Robinhood where new customers were more likely to make their first trade in cryptocurrencies rather than in stocks.

Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev said in a recent interview with The Associated Press that he wants the company to make it easy to trade any asset its customers are interested in, and that increasingly means crypto.

“They’re interested in exploring this new asset class,” he said. “So, no doubt, crypto has been very culturally relevant through the first six months of the year.”

Tenev also said he sees cryptocurrency companies as Robinhood’s competitors, just like other stock-trading brokerages. Coinbase, a publicly traded crypto exchange, said it had $1.9 billion in transaction revenue during the second quarter, versus Robinhood’s $233 million...