Robinhood (HOOD) has shown notable strength in recent trading. The stock briefly returned above the $100 mark last night, although it failed to hold that level by the closing bell. The source article remains constructive on HOOD’s outlook and argues that the recent rally can be explained from several angles, including fundamentals, news flow and visible market behavior. A key starting point is Robinhood’s May operating data, which the company released last week and which serves as one of the basic references for assessing the platform’s current business momentum.
On the news side, several developments have helped reinforce investor enthusiasm around Robinhood. The first is prediction markets, described in the source as the fastest-growing area. Robinhood has begun using its self-built prediction market, Rothera, to intercept activity that previously involved Kalshi, and related revenue is expected no longer to require sharing with Kalshi. The second is the IPO front. SpaceX’s historic IPO brought record-level traffic to Robinhood. More importantly, Robinhood Securities, the company’s brokerage and clearing business, was approved last week to act as an IPO underwriter. This approval means Robinhood can play a more central role in future IPO activities, with Anthropic and OpenAI cited in the source as examples.
Another major development involves the U.S. Treasury. Robinhood has been selected to serve as the broker and initial custodian for “Trump Accounts.” According to the source, these accounts are a tax-deferred investment account plan authorized by U.S. President Donald Trump on June 9, 2025 under the “Big Beautiful” bill. The plan is designed to establish government-funded savings accounts for children who are U.S. citizens and are born between January 1, 2025 and January 1, 2029. In practical terms, the source notes that tens of millions of newborns in the United States over the coming years will default to Robinhood as their brokerage platform.
The author’s original reason for building a position in HOOD was tied mainly to expectations for the company’s Q2 earnings performance. One part of that thesis was that, amid what the source calls an epic rally in U.S. stocks, stock-trading-related revenue for the quarter could surge. Another part was the expected increase in prediction-market trading volume connected to the World Cup, together with Rothera’s role in retaining revenue that previously would have been shared. However, the later decision to move a relatively large portion of the author’s position, mainly some remaining crypto assets, into HOOD was based on a different line of reasoning.
The source recalls a conversation from early May. A friend asked the author what had been bought recently, and the author mentioned HOOD. At that time, HOOD had just fallen from above $90 after a Q1 earnings report that missed expectations. The short-term chart looked weak, and the main reason for the miss was an unexpected $100 million expense related to the “Trump Accounts.” After the author explained the earlier points, the friend said his positions were trapped and he had little cash left. When asked what he was holding, the answer was largely altcoins. The author’s response was direct: “Rather than staying attached to altcoins, it is better to switch positions directly into HOOD.”
The background to that judgment is the long-standing relationship between Robinhood and crypto. For a long period, cryptocurrency-related revenue was an important part of Robinhood’s total revenue, and HOOD’s share price had a strong correlation with crypto assets. Recently, however, the source argues that there are signs Robinhood is breaking through its dependence on the crypto business and moving away from that correlation in a positive direction. Looking at Robinhood’s crypto-related revenue over the past five quarters, the share of that revenue has generally been declining, and the Q1 share has fallen to the lowest level since 2025.
The comparison between HOOD and BTC price movements also supports this view in the source article. Since the beginning of the year, HOOD often traded in a pattern similar to BTC. More recently, however, the two have shown a clear divergence. The point of emphasizing these two observations is that the valuation logic around HOOD has begun to change. In the past, HOOD was often treated as a “shadow stock” of the crypto market. When crypto prices surged, retail traders rushed into Robinhood to trade altcoins, fee revenue jumped, and the stock took off. When the crypto market weakened, retail users left, and Robinhood’s revenue quickly came under pressure.
The source argues that Robinhood is no longer as dependent on crypto as it once was. Even if the crypto market remains in its current sluggish state, Robinhood still has stock trading, prediction markets, Pre-IPO activity and the newly added underwriting business to support growth in performance. This does not mean that the crypto market will stop affecting HOOD. On the contrary, if crypto returns to a bull market, Robinhood’s crypto-trading revenue would likely expand at the same time, allowing HOOD to benefit from industry growth.
Put more plainly in the source’s framing, crypto can still affect HOOD, but HOOD no longer depends on crypto. If a crypto bull market returns, HOOD can still rise with it; if crypto remains half-dead, HOOD has other business lines to lean on. For investors who still have expectations for altcoins but are increasingly worried about liquidity drying up, narratives failing and value capture problems, the source concludes that shifting attention from a token waiting for the next narrative cycle to HOOD offers a higher margin of safety in the current setting.