Author: Ada , Deep Tide TechFlow

Robinhood is experiencing a peculiar split.

After the US stock market closed on February 10, this retail trading platform delivered a seemingly impeccable report card: full-year revenue of $4.5 billion, a 52% year-over-year increase, setting a new record. Diluted earnings per share were $2.05. Net deposits in 2025 are projected to reach a record $68 billion, with $16 billion in the fourth quarter alone. Robinhood Gold's subscriber base reached a record 4.2 million.

CEO Vlad Tenev said confidently during the earnings call, "We are building a financial super app."

However, the stock price fell 7% in after-hours trading. Combined with its year-to-date decline, Robinhood's stock price has halved from its October high. A company that just achieved its best-ever results has seen its market capitalization evaporate by half in four months.

Where is the problem?

A closer look at the financial report reveals that cryptocurrency trading revenue was $221 million, a sharp drop of 38% year-over-year.

The figure was $357 million in the same period last year and $268 million in the previous quarter. By Q4, Robinhood App's crypto transaction volume had plummeted to only $34 billion, a drop of more than half year-over-year.

Retail investors have stopped trading. Bitcoin plummeted from $126,000 to $65,000; FOMO disappeared, replaced by fear. Opening the app reveals a sea of red, and closing the app is the most rational choice.

This is Robinhood's dilemma: its core business is getting better, but the market is only focused on the part that is getting worse.

Of the 4.5 billion in revenue, how much did crypto contribute?

If you break down Robinhood's revenue structure, you'll discover an ongoing identity shift.

Q4 trading commission revenue reached $776 million, a 15% year-over-year increase. Options trading contributed $314 million, up 41%; stock trading $94 million, up 54%; and other trading revenue tripled to $147 million. The only drag on the overall performance was crypto, which plummeted from $358 million to $221 million.

Net interest income was $411 million, up 39%, primarily driven by growth in interest-earning assets and securities lending activities. Gold membership subscription revenue was $50 million, up 56%.

Looking at the whole year, the proportion of crypto transaction revenue in total revenue has dropped from about 35% in Q4 2024 to 17% in Q4 2025.

Robinhood is well aware of this trend.

Over the past year, it has been expanding its product categories at an alarming pace: the prediction market saw 12 billion contract transactions in its first year, with trading volume more than doubling in the fourth quarter alone; futures trading covers stock indices, energy, metals, and crypto; and the number of Gold Card holders is approaching 1 million.

Back in the third quarter of 2025, the company’s management stated, “We now have 11 business lines with annualized revenues exceeding $100 million.”

The implication is that we shouldn't just focus on encryption. But Wall Street is precisely focused on encryption.

A brokerage firm has become a shadow of Bitcoin.

This is reminiscent of the financial report Strategy released five days ago.

Strategy reported a net loss of $12.4 billion in the quarter, almost entirely due to unrealized impairment losses from Bitcoin's Q4 price drop. Saylor, however, was unfazed, stating that Bitcoin's decline was a gift, and every pullback was a buying opportunity.

Robinhood is the opposite. It doesn't hold Bitcoin, doesn't bear price risk, and doesn't rely on issuing bonds to buy cryptocurrency to stay afloat. It's simply a trading platform that earns money from transaction fees.

But when Bitcoin prices fall, retail investors stop trading, and transaction fees disappear.

Strategy lives off the price of Bitcoin. Robinhood lives off the volatility of Bitcoin. The two companies seem completely different, but they actually rely on the same thing at their core: retail investor sentiment towards cryptocurrencies.

Strategy bets on price direction, Robinhood bets on casino foot traffic. In other words, if Bitcoin falls, the casinos go quiet. Both models lose.

Data confirms this assessment. Strategy's MSTR fell 76%, representing a leverage of 1.6 times that of Bitcoin. Robinhood's stock price has fallen approximately 50% from its October high, while Bitcoin has fallen 48% during the same period. The two curves almost overlap.

One is a leveraged long position in Bitcoin, and the other is an at-the-money call option on Bitcoin. The underlying asset is the same: the temperature of the crypto market.

The Trap of "Record-Breaking"

The word "record" appeared multiple times in Robinhood's financial reports. Record annual revenue, record adjusted EBITDA, record net deposits, record Gold members, and record EPS.

These numbers are all true.

Strategy's financial report also mentions "records": record Bitcoin holdings, record cash reserves, and record BTC yield. However, its stock price has plummeted by 76%.

"Setting a record" is a badge of honor in a bull market, but an epitaph in a bear market. It only reflects your state at the highest point, not what will happen next.

Robinhood's Q4 revealed a key metric: monthly active users (MAU) dropped from 14.9 million in the same period last year to 13 million, a decrease of 1.9 million.

The user is leaving.

The company's platform assets under management increased by 68% year-on-year, due to the market capitalization expansion brought about by rising stock and cryptocurrency prices. The annualized growth rate of net deposits has slowed from over 30% at the beginning of the year to 19% in Q4. This means that the rate of money inflow is slowing down. The number of people is decreasing.

This is structurally the same problem Strategy faces. In a bull market, all indicators are self-reinforcing: prices rise, trading activity increases, revenue rises, users increase, and stock price rises. In a bear market, every link reverses.

A flywheel can rotate in reverse. Robinhood also has its own flywheel.

Decryption: A High-Stakes Gamble

Robinhood clearly knows this. Over the past 12 months, Robinhood's strategy can be summarized in one sentence: reduce its reliance on cryptocurrency while doubling down on cryptocurrency infrastructure.

It sounds contradictory, but the logic is clear.

On the revenue side, they are aggressively diversifying: market forecasting, futures, short selling, Gold Card, banking, retirement accounts, international expansion, etc.

On the infrastructure side, they're aggressively expanding. Last year, they acquired Bitstamp, the world's oldest cryptocurrency exchange, and its trading volume has doubled. They launched 2,000 tokenized shares in Europe. They also signed acquisition agreements for a brokerage firm and a cryptocurrency platform in Indonesia.

Robinhood learned from Coinbase's experience in 2022.

Coinbase nearly went under in the last bear market because of its overly singular revenue structure. Armstrong spent two years rebuilding it. Tenev is trying to diversify before the bear market arrives.

But time is not on his side. Robinhood's adjusted operating expenses and stock-based compensation budget for 2026 is between $2.6 billion and $2.725 billion, representing a year-over-year increase of approximately 18%. This money will be spent on international expansion, new product development, and acquisition integration. If the crypto winter continues and the traditional brokerage business does not grow fast enough, the combination of cost expansion and slowing revenue will squeeze profit margins.

With approximately $4.3 billion in cash and cash equivalents on hand, it's enough to last a long time. But like Strategy, "survival" and "growth" are two different things.

Thermometers in the Encrypted Winter

By looking at the financial reports of Strategy and Robinhood side by side, you can see two ways Bitcoin can fall during a bear market.

Strategy is a chronic condition. Bitcoin's price stagnates, the flywheel stops spinning, but the $2.25 billion in cash on hand can last for two and a half years. It has time, but time is eroding faith.

Robinhood is reacting acutely. Crypto revenue plummeted 38% in a single quarter, and monthly active users dropped by 1.9 million, but other businesses are still growing. It won't die, but it will hurt.

What the two companies have in common is that neither can control the most crucial variable in their own destiny.

Strategy cannot control the price of Bitcoin. Robinhood cannot control the sentiment of retail investors. And ultimately, the sentiment of retail investors is determined by the price of Bitcoin.

Everyone in this industry is pretending to have Alpha, but in reality, everyone only has Beta. Beta is Bitcoin. When Bitcoin rises, everyone is a genius. When Bitcoin falls, everyone is swimming naked.

Robinhood did set records in 2025, but no matter how many records are set, they seem unable to mask the growing pains caused by the decline in its crypto business.

Tenev is now facing a question without a standard answer.

Robinhood is like a casino owner who's just started quitting gambling. He knows where the problem is, and he's taking action, but the profits he made in the bull market have turned into debt in the bear market.

For Robinhood, the real test is not the records in a bull market, but the floors in a bear market.

Nobody knows where the floor is yet.

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