The shift in one quarter
On October 27, Robinhood reported that revenue from event contracts, which let customers trade on the outcome of a real-world event, rose more than sixfold from a year earlier to $173 million. In the same quarter, crypto revenue fell 55% to $120 million.1 Event contracts now bring in more than crypto, the business that defined Robinhood's last boom.1
Total revenue rose 12% to a record $1.42 billion. Net income fell 14% to $476 million, and diluted earnings per share fell 16% to $0.51 against $0.55 expected.1 So the company grew its sales and still earned less. Our reading is that the mix is changing faster than profit is. The dossier does not give a cost breakdown, so we cannot say why profit fell.
The long record behind the quarter
These figures come from SEC filings and have been checked against them. Robinhood's annual revenue was $1.865 billion in 2023, $2.951 billion in 2024 and $4.473 billion in 2025.2 That is about 2.4 times the 2023 level in two years.2
Profit moved further. Net income was a $541 million loss in 2023, then a $1.411 billion profit in 2024 and $1.883 billion in 2025.2 Earnings per share went from -$0.61 to $1.56 to $2.05.2
Operating cash flow tells a less tidy story. It was $1.181 billion in 2023, then negative $157 million in 2024 even though net income was $1.411 billion, then $1.638 billion in 2025.2 The filings data we hold does not explain the 2024 gap. Treat that year as an open question, not a trend.
Cash held up too. It stood at $4.835 billion at the end of 2023, $4.332 billion at the end of 2024 and $4.261 billion at the end of 2025.2 It then rose to $5.012 billion in the first quarter of 2026 and $5.362 billion in the second.2 Cash peaked at $5.829 billion in the second quarter of 2023, in our record, and that is still the high.2
Stockholders' equity, meaning what the company's books say it owns after its debts, grew from $6.696 billion to $7.972 billion between 2023 and 2024.2 Spending on research and development stayed fairly flat at $349 million, $323 million and $355 million across 2023 to 2025.2 Revenue more than doubled while that spending barely moved. The dossier does not include other costs, so we do not claim this explains profit.
Where the next product comes from
On September 30, Cboe Global Markets announced at Robinhood's HOOD Summit that it plans to launch binary contracts tied to company-specific key performance indicators. They are expected in October 2026, subject to regulatory approval. Robinhood will be the first retail broker to offer them.3 The release says products tied to 23 companies are planned.3
Steve Quirk said: “Earnings contracts give retail investors another tool to inform their strategies and offer an even more precise way to trade on anticipated company KPIs.”3 That is a statement of intent from a party selling the product. Our dossier does not confirm that regulators have approved the contracts.
A caution on the source: our measured reliability check found that 53% of 6,464 claims from this news feed held up against their sources.3 That is a coin-flip, so we rely on the release only for what Cboe announced, not for outcomes.
Trading hours and the rule-makers
Nasdaq says the industry's move to a 23-hour trading day is expected on Sunday, December 6, 2026. This is pending readiness of the SIP, the shared feed that distributes prices, and SEC rule changes. Subject to SEC approval, Nasdaq would add a 9 p.m. to 4 a.m. ET session.4
Separately, the CFTC said it will host an industry roundtable on December 15 on whether derivatives markets can move to 24/7 trading.5 Nasdaq's date is conditional on approvals, and the CFTC is only starting its discussion. Nothing here is settled.
The regulator is also fighting on another front. On October 27, the CFTC sued Utah to stop the state from using its own laws to shut down CFTC-registered contract markets. It said it has begun legal proceedings against nine other states.6 For a business like Robinhood's event contracts, the open question is whether federal or state rules govern. This is our reading, and the dossier does not name Robinhood in that dispute.
Prediction markets get a real-world test
Brazil's presidential runoff on October 25 gives a sense of how these markets can fail. Prediction markets expected Bolsonaro to win, and he lost.7 Brazilian firms then bought stablecoins to hedge currency risk. USDT volume on Mercado Bitcoin rose nearly 800%, and Bitcoin volume rose 865%.7 A forecast that is wrong still moves money, which is why the rules for these contracts matter to ordinary savers.
On stablecoins, Coinbase set a three-day deadline under the EU's MiCA rules. It said it would automatically convert non-compliant stablecoins, named as USDT, PayPal's and a Trump-linked one, into USDC. It told users not to deposit them after October 30.8 Rules, not technology, are deciding which digital dollars survive in Europe.
The AI-agent layer: money flowing in, trust unproven
If software agents start to buy and trade for people, someone has to vouch for them. Baselayer, a San Francisco startup that helps financial institutions verify businesses and assess fraud risk, raised $35 million to extend its identity technology to AI agents. M13 led the Series A, with Picus Capital taking part.9
Jonathan Awad said: “Agents spin up and they spin down. How can you trust this random one-task agent?”9 He also warned that unless agents can show they act for legitimate people or businesses, “agents will just get blocked everywhere”.9 He said relationships with financial institutions typically take 12 to 18 months to establish, and large merchant partnerships up to 24 months.9 Even a funded company in this area faces a slow sales cycle.
Investor Sean Jacobsohn of Norwest offers a useful counterweight on the hype: “You don't want AI doing calculations because it is not good at math.” He says that when you need precision, accuracy and calculations, you can't rely on AI for them.10 That is a practical limit for anyone hoping agents will manage money unsupervised. The same Crunchbase News group of sources has a measured reliability of 49% of 41 checked claims, so we use these interviews only for what each speaker said.9,10
Where the sources disagree
Our records show two figures for Robinhood's cash at September 30, 2025: $4.331 billion and a rounded $4.3 billion, a gap of about $31 million. The first is the exact filed figure and the second is a rounded version. We use the exact one.2
What to watch
- Whether Cboe's KPI contracts receive regulatory approval, since the launch was expected in October subject to that approval.3
- The CFTC's December 15 roundtable, and the outcome of its suits against Utah and nine other states.5,6
- Whether Nasdaq's December 6 date holds, given it depends on SEC rule changes and SIP readiness.4
- Robinhood's next quarter: can event contracts keep growing while net income, which fell 14% this quarter, recovers?1