Robinhood has added $25 million worth of Bitcoin to its balance sheet as the trading platform puts company capital behind a crypto business spanning trading, tokenized stocks, derivatives and blockchain infrastructure.
Summary
- Robinhood has added $25 million worth of Bitcoin to its balance sheet, with crypto chief Johann Kerbrat describing the purchase as an effort to align the company with the crypto community.
- The purchase comes as Robinhood expands its crypto business through perpetual futures, tokenized stocks, Bitstamp and its Ethereum Layer 2 network Robinhood Chain.
- Strategy purchased another 334 BTC for roughly $28.7 million between Sept. 28 and Oct. 4, bringing its total Bitcoin holdings to 848,000 BTC.
- Bitcoin was trading near $84,000 on Wednesday, with $82,000 remaining an important support area while a recovery above $87,500 could reopen the path toward the upper end of its October range.
According to Robinhood senior vice president and general manager of crypto and international Johann Kerbrat, the purchase was intended to align the company and its plans more closely with Bitcoin and the crypto market.
“We care deeply about bitcoin and the ecosystem around it,” Kerbrat told crypto media. “For us, it’s more aligning our company and our vision with the crypto community.”
Kerbrat described the $25 million position as relatively small for Robinhood given the company’s size. Its Nasdaq listed shares closed 1.85% lower at $112 on Tuesday, putting its market capitalization close to $100 billion.
“Robinhood is a massive company at this point, with a market cap in the $100 billion [range],” Kerbrat said. “So the $25 million worth of bitcoin is not going to change a lot of the current trajectory of the company.”
The Bitcoin holding puts Robinhood’s own capital behind an asset that has become an increasingly large part of its trading business. Robinhood reported $17.5 billion in crypto notional trading volume during August, up 61% from $10.9 billion in July, according to operating data covered by crypto.news in September.
Bitstamp accounted for $10.1 billion of the August volume, while another $7.4 billion was handled through Robinhood’s main app. Funded customers reached 28.6 million and total platform assets stood at approximately $384 billion at the end of August.
Robinhood Bitcoin purchase follows its derivatives push
Robinhood’s crypto products are moving beyond spot trading as the company prepares to offer perpetual futures to eligible U.S. users.
Plans outlined earlier this month cover Bitcoin, Ether, Solana, XRP, Dogecoin, Cardano, Chainlink and Hyperliquid. Bitcoin and Ether perpetual contracts are expected to carry leverage of up to 10x, while the other six assets would offer up to 3x leverage.
The products are expected to run through Robinhood Derivatives using infrastructure from Bitstamp, the crypto exchange Robinhood acquired in 2025. Trading fees are set at 0.01% through the end of 2026.
Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev described the planned offering as the first “true perps” for U.S. customers, with no expiry and profit and loss settled every 15 minutes.
The company’s derivatives plans were detailed alongside another part of its crypto business. Robinhood said its stock token trading volume was already approaching limits imposed under the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s five year innovation exemption for tokenized equities.
Kerbrat said Robinhood plans to add voting rights and in kind redemptions to its stock tokens while working toward support for more U.S. stocks and exchange traded funds.
Robinhood Chain gives the company its own crypto network
Much of Robinhood’s onchain strategy now runs through Robinhood Chain, an Ethereum Layer 2 built using Arbitrum technology.
The company launched the public Layer 2 mainnet on July 1 alongside tokenized stocks and decentralized perpetual futures. Eligible users in more than 120 countries were given access to tokenized equities through Robinhood Wallet on supported decentralized exchanges.
Early activity was concentrated heavily in crypto native trading. During its first week, Robinhood Chain processed $570 million in trading volume against $21.68 million in liquidity, with memecoin trading accounting for much of the activity.
Network usage continued to grow after launch. Robinhood Chain recorded 7.6 million transactions in a single day on July 11, compared with 9.2 million on Coinbase’s Base over the same period, according to onchain data shared by MSBIntel and verified by Token Terminal.
By late July, the network had processed more than $12 billion in decentralized exchange volume and over 150 million transactions, according to Bernstein. Robinhood Wallet gives the company another route into the network and is available across more than 120 countries.
Kerbrat said Robinhood has around 27 million funded accounts in the U.S. and another 1 million outside the country.
“So this is probably the first time that an L2 is connected to such a large distribution,” he said.
Corporate Bitcoin buyers remain active
Robinhood enters the corporate Bitcoin market with a far smaller position than companies that have built their balance sheets around the cryptocurrency.
Strategy said Monday that it purchased another 334 BTC for approximately $28.7 million between Sept. 28 and Oct. 4. The company paid an average of $85,838.80 per coin, lifting its holdings to 848,000 BTC.
The latest transaction came after Strategy bought 1,665 BTC for $142.7 million during the week ended Sept. 27. That purchase was made at an average price of $85,681 per Bitcoin and took its holdings at the time to 847,666 BTC.
Strategy financed the September purchase through sales of its MSTR common stock. It raised $246.2 million in net proceeds from 1.47 million shares, using $142.7 million for Bitcoin and another $103.5 million toward repurchases of its STRC preferred shares.
The company had returned to Bitcoin buying only a week earlier after pausing purchases for two weeks. Strategy spent $75.7 million on 950 BTC between Sept. 14 and Sept. 20 at an average price of $79,670 per coin.
Other public companies have taken different approaches to their holdings during 2026. Sequans Communications sold its remaining 314 BTC in September after using earlier Bitcoin sales to reduce convertible debt, ending its Bitcoin treasury strategy.
Bitcoin price outlook keeps $82,000 in focus
Bitcoin was trading near $84,000 on Wednesday as higher oil prices, Treasury yields and a stronger U.S. dollar weighed on the crypto market. More than $403 million in leveraged long positions were liquidated within one hour during the selloff, while Brent crude moved above $101. Bitcoin exchange supply fell to 6.5% after 24,073 BTC left trading platforms, according to Santiment data cited in a crypto market update.
Price action has left BTC close to a range that analysts were already watching entering October. Bitget Wallet research lead Lacie Zhang previously placed Bitcoin’s likely October range between $78,000 and $95,000, with $82,000 identified as an important downside level. Zhang told crypto.news that $87,500 was the main level Bitcoin would need to clear before a stronger recovery could develop. Institutional demand would need to absorb selling from long term holders and miners for gains to hold, according to the October Bitcoin outlook.
ETF demand has cooled since then. Bitfinex analysts said U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF inflows fell from $2.39 billion to $241.1 million during the week ended Oct. 2, while Bitcoin failed to break above $87,722. The analysts placed BTC in an $84,000 to $87,722 range while spot buying remains weak and said sustained trading below $81,300 alongside ETF withdrawals could put the recovery at risk.
