Robinhood Just Got Smacked with its First Real Crypto Bear Market

For years now, Robinhood has been the app of choice for a generation of punters who wanted to buy Bitcoin from their phone in between scrolling TikTok. And for years, that’s been a money printer for them. Every Bitcoin pump, every memecoin frenzy, every doge mania, the trading fees rolled in. Well, not anymore. Robinhood put out their Q1 2026 numbers on Tuesday, and the bit everyone was watching, the crypto bit, looked rough. Crypto trading revenue was down 47% year-on-year. They booked $134 million from crypto trading, down from $252 million in the same quarter last year. Trading volumes were even worse, off 48% to just $24 billion[1]. Total revenue came in at $1.07 billion. The market wanted $1.14 billion. EPS was $0.38 against $0.39 expected. Stock dropped nearly 10% in after-hours trading. Welcome to a crypto bear market. Robinhood has never properly been through a crypto bear market as a public company. They listed in July 2021. Caught a taste of the late 2021 unwind, then rode the whole thing higher. 2024 was a melt-up. Late 2025 was Bitcoin tickling $120,000. The entire life of HOOD as a listed stock has been one long tailwind, fattened up by retail punters happy to mash buttons on their phone all day. After peaking at $120,000, Bitcoin is around $76,000 today. It got as low as $60,000 earlier this year. The fear and greed index has been buried in the red for months. Volumes have dried up. As we’ve highlighted before, an exchange, particularly one that’s heavily crypto focused, lives and breathes by Bitcoin’s success. Typically, there’s nothing wrong with the business, just when Bitcoin trading stops, so does the music… With AI deal flow surpassing $55B in 2025, consolidation is the direction of the market. RAD Intel is scaling inside that shift, and the entry remains early. In 2021, RAD acquired its core AI engine. Since then, valuation has scaled from $10M to $220M+ (22x), supported by recurring 7-figure Fortune 1000 contracts. Through its Artificial Intelligence Buyout strategy (AIBO), RAD deploys that same platform across operating businesses to compound value while isolating risk. Leadership has $9B+ in M&A experience. RAD’s momentum is real. Backed by multiple institutional funds, selected by the Adobe Design Fund, and more than 20K investors, including insiders from Google, Meta, Youtube, and Amazon. The early window won’t stay open for long. NASDAQ ticker reserved: $RADI. *Featured by Nasdaq, Fast Company, Bloomberg, Venture Beat, Forbes, Tech Crunch, Charles Schwab, Cheddar TV, NYSE and NASDAQ. Get in at $0.91/share before the price changes on 4/30.* To his credit, Vlad Tenev didn’t try to spin it on the call. He literally said, ‘I want to get away from talking about the price of Bitcoin.’ He’s pitching crypto now as plumbing for finance, not as a casino. And he dropped this line that I think most of the market completely missed: ‘We’re at the very beginning of what’s going to be a tokenization super cycle[2].’ With the stock price taking a hit off the back of all this, that statement is definitely worth paying attention to. Robinhood are not just sitting around hoping Bitcoin rips again. They’ve already launched over 200 tokenized U.S. stocks and ETFs for European customers, running on Arbitrum. They’re building their own Layer-2 chain specifically for tokenized real-world assets. They’ve got crypto perpetual futures live in Europe, ETH and SOL staking live in the U.S., and Tenev has been on stage at Token2049 calling tokenization a ‘freight train’ that’s going to ‘eat the entire financial system[3].’ You may have heard all of this before from me. But, you couple what Robinhood are doing and thinking long term about tokenization, you add the NYSE going tokenized, NASDAQ pushing 23/5 trading, Ondo and Solana putting hundreds of equities on-chain, it’s easy to see where we’re heading. Look at where the stock is. HOOD is down around 27% year-to-date, trading near $82, off a 52-week high of $153. A retail brokerage with a strong brand and a big opportunity in tokenized assets, building rails for the next cycle, getting whacked because crypto cooled off for a quarter? That’s not a broken company to me, that’s an opportunity. When Bitcoin wakes up, and it will, Robinhood’s earnings rip with it. Tokenized equities are going to be the norm soon enough. So, the idea of adding Robinhood to a portfolio, a way into crypto through the public markets, getting the best of all worlds, seems like a reasonable idea. It might not be the short-term sexy trade, but long-term, it may end up the best one of the current market. Trust in crypto, Adam Atlantic [1] https://investors.robinhood.com/static-files/6840cc36-4a2d-46d8-a9c3-0b334da724f8 [2] https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2026/04/28/robinhood-stock-shrugs-off-a-47-crash-in-crypto-revenue-thanks-to-a-massive-surge-in-event-betting [3] https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2025/10/02/tokenization-is-going-to-eat-the-entire-financial-system-says-robinhood-ceo *Disclaimer: This is a paid advertisement for RAD Intel made pursuant to Regulation A+ offering and involves risk, including the possible loss of principal. The valuation is set by the Company and there is currently no public market for the Company’s Common Stock. Nasdaq ticker “$RADI” has been reserved by RAD Intel and any potential listing is subject to future regulatory approval and market conditions. Brand references reflect factual platform use, not endorsement. Investor references reflect factual individual or institutional participation and do not imply endorsement or sponsorship by the referenced companies. Some media placements are earned organically, while others may be paid sponsorships or promotional placements. Please read the offering circular and related risks at invest.RADIntel.ai. Revenue growth reflects unaudited financial information as disclosed in the Company’s offering circular supplement filed with the SEC.