Robinhood’s Crypto Custody Hits $11.5B in Q1

Robinhood’s crypto business lines are showing signs of a turnaround.

The publicly traded company’s first quarter earnings, earnings released after Wednesday’s market close in New York, reflected a rise of the company’s assets under custody to $78 billion, said to be helped by “higher market valuations” for both crypto assets and growth stocks.

The crypto assets Robinhood custodies for clients stood at $11.5 billion through the end of the first quarter — booking a notable increase from its $8.4 billion through year end 2022.

There was a slight downtick in crypto transactions revenue, falling to $38 million — booking about a 1% decline from the fourth quarter, when Robinhood’s crypto business was heavily stung alongside its competitors.

In the fourth quarter of last year, Robinhood reported a 24% drop in associated revenues, with crypto-linked revenues dropping to $39 million.

“We see potential to grow our market share,” in the crypto offerings, a Robinhood executive said on its post-earnings conference call. Executives also said that they want to “keep pricing competitive.”

“The crypto environment has faced increasing regulatory scrutiny,” executives said. “We’ve been a safety-first company…We’ve been very deliberate in the way we expand our coin offering.”

Robinhood executives said they have “respect” for US securities regulation efforts, but added that “additional regulatory clarity would be super helpful.”

The company, in a statement accompanying its earnings release, said it has expanded its Robinhood Wallet so that it’s available “globally via the Apple App Store.”

Last year, Robinhood’s cryptocurrency division was hit with a $30 million fine from New York’s financial regulator for failing to sufficiently resource its compliance programs.

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