A recent report highlights intensifying competition between Robinhood and Coinbase as the boundaries between stock trading and cryptocurrency blur. Robinhood's stock surged 186% in 2025, while Coinbase's fell 12%, despite a supportive political environment for crypto. Both firms are expanding into each other's domains and vying for dominance in prediction markets.
The rivalry between Robinhood and Coinbase has sharpened as traditional stock trading increasingly intersects with cryptocurrency, according to a report published by The Information on January 11, 2026. Coinbase is venturing into stock trading, while Robinhood broadens its cryptocurrency services, positioning them to compete directly for the same users.
In 2025, Robinhood's shares rose dramatically by 186%, contrasting with Coinbase's 12% decline. This downturn for Coinbase persisted even under a crypto-friendly U.S. administration. Coinbase performed strongly until October 2025, when the crypto market experienced its steepest drop in three years. Meanwhile, Robinhood derived about one-fifth of its third-quarter revenue that year from crypto operations.
"If there’s a crypto winter, they’re not going to be suffering from it as much as Coinbase will," said Dan Dolev, a senior equity research analyst at Mizuho, underscoring Robinhood's diversified revenue streams.
A key battleground is prediction markets, where Robinhood gained an early advantage. The company launched its first event contract in 2024, betting on the U.S. presidential election winner, and later expanded into sports outcomes. These markets have become Robinhood's fastest-growing revenue source, generating $300 million in the third quarter of 2025. Trading volume reached 2.3 billion event contracts that quarter and 2.5 billion in October alone.
Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev expressed enthusiasm during a November 2025 earnings call: "I think it’s really exciting to see where this can go. I mean, we love being early to this new asset class, and some people are saying this could be one of the largest asset classes because you can price risk in pretty much anything."
However, the prediction market sector faces challenges, including thin liquidity that can skew prices, speculative excesses that dilute informational value, ethical issues around betting on sensitive events like elections or health crises, and the need for stronger consumer protections to distinguish trading from gambling.
